
Oass. 
Book. 



/ 



CLIFF CASTLES AND CAVE 
DWELLINGS OF EUROPE 



'2. 




Cliff-Castle, Brengues 

In this castle the Bishop of Cahors took refuge from the English, to whom he 
refused to submit, and in it he died in 1367. It was however captured by the: 

English in 1377. 



CLIFF CASTLES AND 

CAVE DWELLINGS 

OF EUROPE 



BY 



S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF 

FAMILY NAMES &• THEIR STORY," "THE TRAGEDY OF THE C/ESARS, 
"CURIOUS MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE AGES," &-C. <&C. 



The house i' the rock 
. . . no life to ours." 

Cymbeline III. 3. 



WITH 51 ILLUSTRATIONS ^ DIAGRAMS 



PHILADELPHIA 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

LONDON : SEELEY &^ CO. LTD. 
1911 






^10 it 



t/ 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Cliff Castle, Bkengues Frontispiece - 

PAGE 

Cave Dwelleks at Duclair 44 ♦ 

Sauliac 46 ' 

(Photo by Girma) 

Grioteaux 48y 

La Kochebrune 48 

Sketch Plan op Eock Stable, Commarques ... 55 

Plan of Kock Holes in Nottingham Park . . . . 57 

Drakelow 60 

Aubeterre 60 

Plan op the Refuge of Chateau Robin .... 79 

The Chateau op Fayrolles 83 

Cluseau de Fauroux ......... 85 

La Roche Gageac 104 

Le Peuch S. Sour 104 

Caves of Meschers 112'- 

Cave Refuge at Soulier de Chasteau 112 

Lb B^Fih^ DES Anglais, Lot ....... 130 

(Photo by Baudel, S. CjsRi:): 

CHiTEAU DES AnGLAIS, BRENGUES . . . . . .132 

Chateau du Diable, Cabrerets (Exterior) . . . .132 

(Interior) .... 132 
(Photo by Baudel, S. CiIr:^) 

Corn, Lot 134 

{Photo by Baudel, S. Cer^:) 

Chateau des Anglais, Autoire 136 

(Photo by Baudel, S. Ci^re) 

COVOLO ,. . . . . 138'' 

La Roche du Tailleur 138 ' 

Kronmetz 148 • 

15 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE . 

The Puxerloch, Styria 152 ' 

Habichstein, Bohemia 154 "^ 

KocK Monastery, Nottingham Park 158' 

KocK Monastery, Nottingham Park ICOv'' 

La Roche Corail ^^^j 

,, „ the First Hall 162" 

Gu^ DE Loir 164^ 

Les Roches 164 

Plan op Martyrium . , . . , . . . . 179 ' 

Monolithic Church op S. Emilion 180 ^ 

AUBETERRB, CHARENTE, INTERIOR OP MONOLITHIC ChURCH . 182 *^ 
{Photo by Delage) 

Rocamadour 184"^ 

(Photo by Baudel, S. Cere) 

AUBETERRB, CHARENTE 186 '"^ 

{Photo by Delage) 

Subterranean Church, Aubeterrb 188 ^ 

{Photo by Delage)! 

Dolmen Chapel op the Seven Sleepers 19(\ \y' 

Plan op Dolmen Chapel near Plouaret .... 191 

Plan op Chapel op S. Amadou 215 " 

Sculpture in Royston Cave 220^^ 

{Photo by R. H, Clark, Royston) 

,, 222 V 

{Photo by R. H. Clark, Royston) 

Royston Cave 226/' 

{Photo by R. H. Claek, Royston) • 

Chateau de Rignac 226 

Le Trou Bourou 234 

Rock Baptistery op St. Martin 234 

Triumph op Christ over Death 238 

{Photo by Laceoix) 

Caves op LiqugiS 240 

Ness Clipp 268 ^' 

Kynaston's Cave 268 

16 



PREFACE 

WHEN in 1850 appeared the Report of the 
Secretary of War for the United States, con- 
taining Mr. J. H. Simpson's account of the 
Cliff Dwellings in Colorado, great surprise was awakened in 
America, and since then these remains have been investi- 
gated by many explorers, of whom I need only name 
Holmes' "Report of the Ancient Ruins in South- West 
Colorado! during the Summers of 1875 and 1876," and 
Jackson's " Ruins of South- West Colorado in 1875 and 1877." 
Powell, Newberry, &c., have also described them. A summary 
is in " Prehistoric America," by the Marquis de Nadaillac, 
1885, and the latest contribution to the subject are articles 
in Scribner's Magazme by E. S. Curtis, 1906 and 1909. 

The Pueblc^ Indians dwell for the most part at a short 
distance fr6m the Rio Grande ; the Zuni, however, one of 
their best known tribes, are settled far from that river, 
near the sources of the Gila. In the Pueblos country are 
tremendous canons of red sandstone, and in their sides are 
the habitations of human beings perched on every ledge 
in inaccessible positions. Major Powell, United States 
Geologist, expressed his amazement at seeing nothing for 
whole days but perpendicular cliffs everywhere riddled with 
human dwellings resembling the cells of a honeycomb. The 
apparently inaccessible heights w^ere scaled by means of long 
poles with lateral teeth disposed like the rungs of a ladder, 
and inserted at intervals in notches let into the face of the 
perpendicular rock. The most curious of these dwellings, 
compared to which the most Alpine chalet is of easy access, 

5 



PREFACE 

have ceased to be occupied, but the Maqui, in North-West 
Arizona, still inhabit villages of stone built on sandstone 
tables, standing isolated in the midst of a sandy ocean 
almost destitute of vegetation. 

The cause of the abandonment of the cliff dwellings has 
been the diminished rainfall, that rendering the land barren 
has sent its population elsewhere. The rivers, the very 
streams, are dried up, and only parched water-courses show 
where they once flowed. 

" The early inhabitants of the region under notice were 
wonderfully skilful in turning the result of the natural 
weathering of the rocks to account. To construct a cave- 
dwelling, the entrance to the cave or the front of the open 
gallery was walled up with adobes, leaving only a small 
opening serving for both door and window. The cliff 
houses take the form and dimensions of the platform or 
ledge from which they rise. The masonry is well laid, and 
it is wonderful with what skill the walls are joined to the 
cliff, and with what care the aspect of the neighbouring 
rocks has been imitated in the external architecture." ^ 

In Asia also these rock-dwellings abound. The limestone 
cliffs of Palestine are riddled with them. They are found 
also in Armenia and in Afghanistan. At Bamian, in the 
latter, " the rocks are perforated in every direction. A 
whole people could put up in the 'Twelve Thousand 
Galleries ' which occupy the slopes of the valley for a dis- 
tance of eight miles. Isolated bluffs are pierced with so 
many chambers that they look like honeycombs." ^ 

That Troglodytes have inhabited rocks in Africa has 
been known since the time of Pliny. 

But it has hardly been realised to what an extent similar 
cliff dwellings have existed and do still exist in Europe. 

^ Nadaillac, "Prehistoric America," Lend. 1885, p. 205. 
2 Reclus, "Asia," iii. p. 245. 

6 



PREFACE 

In 1894, in my book, " The Deserts of Southern France," 
I drew attention to rock habitations in Dordogne and Lot, 
but I had to crush all my information on this subject into 
a single chapter. The subject, however, is too interesting 
and too greatly ramified to be thus compressed. It is one, 
moreover, that throws sidelights on manners and modes of 
life in the past that cannot fail to be of interest. The 
description given above of cliff dwellings in Oregon might 
be employed, without changing a word, for those in Europe. 

To the best of my knowledge, the theme of European 
Troglodytes has remained hitherto undealt with, though 
occasional mention has been made of those on the Loire. 
It has been taken for granted that cave-dwellers belonged 
to a remote past in civilised Europe ; but they are only 
now being expelled in Nottinghamshire and Shropshire, by 
the interference of sanitary officers. 

Elsewhere, the race is by no means extinct. In France 
more people live underground than most suppose. And 
they show rlo inclination to leave their dwellings. Just one 
month ago from the date of writing this page, I sketched 
the new front that a man had erected to his paternal cave 
at Villiers in Loir et Cher. The habitation was wholly 
subterranean, but then it consisted of one room alone. 
The freshly completed face was cut in freestone, with door 
and window, and above were sculptured the aces of hearts, 
spades, and diamonds, an anchor, a cogwheel and a fish. 
Separated from this mansion was a second, divided from it 
by a buttress of untrimmed rock, and this other also was 
newly fronted, occupied by a neat and pleasant-spoken 
woman who wa^ vastly proud of her cavern residence. 
" Mais c'est tout ce qu'on pent desirer. Enfin on s'y trouve 
tres bien."" 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PREHISTOKIC CAVB-DWELLEES 

PACES 

Formation of chalk — Of dolomitic limestone — Where did the first 
men live — Their Eden in the chalk lands — Migration else- 
where — Pit dwellings — Civilisation stationary — Troglodytes — 
Antiquity of man — Les Eyzies — Hotel du Paradis — The first 
colonists of the Vezere Valley — Their artistic accomplishments 
— Painting and sculpture — Eock dwellings in Champagne — Of a 
later period — Civilisation does not progress uniformly — The 
earth — Book of the Revelation of the past — La Laugerie 
Basse — Blandas — Conduche — Grotte de Han — The race of 
Troglodytes not extinct 1-29 

CHAPTER II 

MODERN TROGLODYTES 

Troglodytes of the Etang de Berre — The underground town of Og, 
King of Bashan — Troo — Sanitation — Ancient mode of disposing 
of refuse — The talking well — Les Roches — Ch§,teau de Bandan 
— Chapel of S. Gervais — La Grotte des Vierges — Rochambeau — 
Le Roi des Halles — La Roche Corbon — Human refuse at Ezy — 
Saumur — Are there still pagans among them ? — BourrI — 
Courtineau — The basket-makers of Villaines — Grioteaux — 
Sauliac — Cuzorn — Brantdme — LaRocheBeaucourt — TheSwabian 
Alb — Sibyllen loch — Vrena Beutlers Hohle — Schillingsloch — 
Schlossberg Hohle — Rock village in Sicily — In the Crimea — 
In Egypt — In volcanic breccia — Balmes de Montbrun — Grottoes 
de Boissiere — Grottoes de Jonas — The rock Ceyssac — The sand- 
stone cave-dwellings of Correze — Their internal arrangement — 
Cluseaux — Cave-dwellings in England — In Nottinghamshire — 
In Staffordshire — In Cornwall — In Scotland — The savage in 
man — Reversion to savagery — The Gubbins — A stone-cutter — 
Daniel Gumb — A gentleman of Sens — Toller of Clun Downs . 30-69 

CHAPTER III 

SOUTEREAINS 

Prussian invasion of Bohemia — Adersbach and Wickelsdorf 
labyrinths — Refuges of the Israelites— Gauls suffocated in caves 
by Caesar — Armenians by Corbulo — Story of Julius Sabinus — 
Saracen invasion — The devastation of Aquitaine by Pepin — 
Rock refuges in Quercy — The Northmen — Persecution of the 

9 



CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Albigenses — The cave of Lombrive — The English domination 
of Guyenne — Two kinds of refuges — Saint Macaire — Alban — 
Refuge of Chateau Robin — Exploration — Methods of defence 
— Souterrain of FayroUe — Of Saint Gauderic — Of Fauroux 
— Of Olmie — Aubeterre — Refuges under castles — Enormous 
number of souterrains in France — Victor Hugo's account of 
those in Brittany — Refuges resorted to in the time of the 
European War — Those in Picardy — Gapennes — Some com- 
paratively modern — Condition of the peasantry during the 
Hundred Years' War — Tyranny of the nobles — Their barbarities 
— Refuges in Ireland — In England — The Dene Holes — at 
Chislehurst — At Tilbury — Their origin — Fogous in Cornwall — 
Refuges in Haddingtonshire — In Egg — Slaughter of the 
Macdonalds — Refuges in the Isle of Rathlin — Massacre by John 
Norris — Refuges in Crete — Christians suffocated in one by the 
Turks — Lamorciere in Algeria 70-102 

CHAPTER IV 

CLIFF REFUGES 

Distinction between souterrain and cliff refuges — How these latter 
were reached — Cazelles — Peuch Saint Sour^ — Story of S. Sour — 
The Roc d'Aucor — Exploration — How formerly reached — 
Boundoulaou — Riou Ferrand — Cliff refuge near Brengues — Les 
M^es — Fadarelles — Buy Labrousse — Soulier-de-Chasteaux — 
Refuges in Auvergne — Meschers — In Ariege — The Albigenses 
— Caves in Derbyshire — Reynard's cave — Cotton's cave — John 
Cann's cave — Elford's cave on Sheep's Tor .... 103-116 



CHAPTER V 

CLIFF CASTLES. THE EOUTIERS 

The seigneural castle — Protection sought against the foes without 
and against the peasant in revolt — Instance of the Chateau Les 
Eyzies — Independence of the petty nobles — Condition of the 
country in France — In Germany — Weakness of the Emperor — 
The Raubritter — Italy — The nobles brought into the towns — 
Their towers — Division of the subject — Difference between the 
English manor-house and the foreign feudal castle — The 
English in France — The Hundred Years' War — Hopeless 
condition of the people — The Free Companies — How recruited — 
Crusade against , the Albigenses — Barons no better than Routiers 
— Death of chivalry — Routiers were rarely Englishmen — Had 
no scruples as to whom they served — Disregarded treaties — The 
captains were Gascons or French — The nobles of the south on 
the English side — Nests in the rock — Depopulation and devasta- 
tion — Insolence of the Companies — Bigaroque — Roc de Tayac — 
Corn — Roquefort — Brengues — The Bishop of Cahors dies there — 
Chateau du Diable at Cabrerets — Ddfild des Anglais — Peyrousse 
— Les Roches du Tailleur — Trosky — The scolding women — The 

English not forgotten in Guyenne 117-141 

10 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

CLIFF CABTLiiS— Continued 

PAGES 

The difference between feudal castles and those of the Routiers — 
Illustration of the character of the nobles — Two Counts of Peri- 
gord — The nobles in Auvergne — " Les grands Jours " — La Roche 
Saint Christophe — Surprised and destroyed — Reoccupied by the 
Huguenots — Final destruction — La Roche Gageac — Its history — 
Jean Tarde — Ravages of the Huguenots — Gluges — La Roche 
Lambert — Habichstein — Burgstein — The spy — Kronmetz — 
Covolo — Puxerloch — The shadowless man — Nottingham Castle 
— Arrest of Mortimer — Outmost castles — La Grotte de Jioux — 
Clovis crosses the Vienne — Le Qn6 du Loir — Antoine de Bourbon 
— Calvin at Saint Saturnin — His cave — La Roche Corail — Cave 
in which the " Institute of the Christian Religion" was written 
— Effects produced by this work — Preparation of jmen's minds 
for reform — Havoc wrought to art by the Calvinists — La 
Rochebrune — A cave-colander — Necessity for outlook stations — 
Frontier fortifications 142-172 



CHAPTER VII 

SUBTBKRANBAN CHURCHES 

Basilicas and catacumbal churches — Preference of the people for the 
latter — The cult of martyrs encouraged this — Crypts — Elevation 
of relics — Church of SS. John and Paul on the Coelian Hill — 
Temples were originally sepulchres — Basilican churches con- 
verted into mausoleums — Dedications — Altars of wood changed 
for altars of stone — At first the bodies of martyrs were not 
dismembered — But dismemberment was made necessary by the 
transformation — The Martyrium of Poitiers — S. Emilion — 
Carvings — Crypt — Aubeterre — A Huguenot stronghold — Orders 
issued by Jeanne d'Albret — Her extended powers — The mono- 
lithic church — Menaced by ruin — Rocamadour — Lirac — Mimet 
— Caudon — Natural caves used as churches — Gurat — Lanmeur — 
Story of S. Melor — Dolmen Chapel of the Seven Sleepers — Another 
at Cangas-de-Ones — Confolens — Subterranean churches in Egypt 
— In Crete — The sacred caves in Palestine — Revival of cave 
sanctuaries by the Crusaders — Springs of water in crypts . 173-195 



CHAPTER VIII 

ROCK HERMITAGES 

Tibetian recluses — Christian hermits in Syria and Egypt — The 
Essenes and Therapeutas — Description by Philo of the latter — 
Buddhist and Manichaean influence — Difference in motive — 
Likeness superficial — Possible necessity for the adoption of 
asceticism — Instance of extravagant asceticism in Syria — ■ 

11 



CONTENTS 



Extravagances in Ireland — In England — Early European 
solitaries — The Beatus Hohle — G-rotto of S. Cybard — Decadence 
— Hermits in Languedoc — In Germany — A grocer hermit — 
Hermitage at S. Maurice — The Wild Kirchlein — The cave of S. 
Verena at Soleure — That of Magdalen at Freiburg — Oberstein — 
Hermitage at Brive — La Sainte Beaume — Soug^ — Villiers — 
Montserrat — Subiaco — La Vernia — Warkworth — Knaresborough 
— Robin Hood's stable — Roche — Anchor Church — Royston cave 
— Its carvings — Kindly remembrance of the hermit — The hermit 
a loss 196-227 



CHAPTER IX 

EOCK MONASTEEIES 

The hermits self-excommunicate — Liability to create a schism — 
S. Paul — S. Mary of Egypt — S. Anthony — Enormous number of 
solitaries compels organisation into monasteries — Causes 
inducing flight to the desert — S. Athanasius at Treves — Writes 
the "Life of S. Anthony" — Impulse given to flight from the 
world in the West — S. Martin — Desires to imitate the Lives of 
the Fathers of the Desert — At Poitiers — Founds Ligugd — Rock 
cells — Later history and ruin — Martin becomes Bishop of Tours — 
Founds Marmoutier — History and ruin — Martin and the 
masqueraders — Present state — Baptistry — The Seven Sleepers 
— Brice elected bishop — Obliged to fly the see — Return and 
penance — Cave of S. Leobard — Abbey of Brantome — Under- 
ground church — Other caves — '* Papists' Holes " at Nottingham 
— Rock monastery of Meteora — Der el Adra — Inkermann . 228-245 



CHAPTER X 

CAVE OEACLES 

Polignac — Greek oracles — Charonion — Cave'of the Nymphs — Exhala- 
tions — Delos — Care of Trophonios — Experiences of Pausanius 
— Cave at Acharaca — Sibylline oracles — Destruction — Forged 
oracles — Oracles among the Jews — Story of Hallbjorn — Sounds 
issuing from caves — Echo — JEolian cave of Terni — Purgatory 
of S. Patrick — The Knight Owain — Visit by Sir William Lisle 
— By a monk of Eymstadt — Prohibited by Alexander VL — 
Prohibition rescinded by Pius III.— Destroyed in 1622— Revival 
of pilgrimages — Description by Gough — Friar Conrad — Lazarus 
Aigner — Roderic, King of the Goths — Sortes Sacras — Con- 
demned by the Church — Nevertheless practised — Instances from 
Gregory of Tours — Incubation in pagan shrines — The cave of 
Cybele — Temples of Isis and Esculapius — Churches founded by 
Constantine dedicated to S. Michael — Incubation practiced in 
them — Instances — Churches of S. Cosmas and Damian— Practice 
at Caerleon — Superstition hard to kill— Grotto of Lourdes . 246-268 

12 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XI 

EOBBEES' DENS 

MPAGES 

Humphrey Kynaston — His adventurous life — Cave at Ness Cliff — 
Chinamen — David at Adullam — Bandit caves in Palestine — 
Lombrive — Surtshellir — Feruiden's cave — Gargas — La Crouzate 
— The haunts of Grettir — Dunterton — Precautions against 
burglary — Story of K. F. Masch — His capture — The Leichtweis- 
hohle — Adersbach retreats — Babinsky — His capture . , 269-294 



CHAPTER XII 

KOCK SEPULCHEBS 

Difference between the tombs of the Israelites and those of the 
Egyptians — The reason for this — Jewish catacombs at Eome — 
Christian catacombs — Puticoli — Numerous catacombs — Those 
of Syracuse — Those of Paris^ — Crypts became vaults for kings 
and nobles — Desecration — That of Louis XI. — The instinct of 
immortality — Cave burials — In the Petit Morin — Scandinavian 
burials — Death regarded as suspended animation — Hervor at 
the cairn of Angantyr — The cairn-breaking of Gest — The barrow 
of Gunnar — Sigrun visits her husband in his cairn — The story 
of Asmund and Asvid — The same ideas in Christian times — 
Mamertinus and Corcodemus — ** De Miraculis Mortuorum " — 
Ancestor worship — Persistence of usages derived from a remote 
antiquity — Neglect of thought of the dead — Double nature of 
man — The spiritual world — A walking postman — Conclusion 295-318 

INDEX 319-324 



13 



CLIFF CASTLES AND CAYE 
DWELLINGS OF EUROPE 

CHAPTER I 

PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

IN a vastly remote past, and for a vastly extended 
period, the mighty deep rolled over the surface of 
a world inform and void, depositing a sediment of 
its used up living tenants, the microscopic cases of fora- 
miniferas, sponges, sea-urchins, husks, and the cast limbs 
of crustaceans. The descending shells of the diatoms like 
a subaqueous snow gradually buried the larger dejections. 
This went on till the sediment had attained a thickness 
of over one thousand feet. Then the earth beneath, heaved 
and tossed in sleep, cast off its white featherbed, projected 
it on high to become the chalk formation that occupies 
so distinct and extended a position in the geological structure 
of the globe. The chalk may be traced from the North 
of Ireland to the Crimea, a distance of about 11,140 geo- 
graphical miles, and, in an opposite direction, from the 
South of Sweden to Bordeaux, a distance of 840 geogra- 
phical miles. 

It extends as a broad belt across France, like the sash 
of a Republican mayor. You may travel from Calais to 
Vendome, to Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme, to the Gironde, 
and you are on chalk the whole way. It stretches through 
Central Europe, and is seen in North Africa. From the 

B 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

Crimea it reaches into Syria, and may be traced as far as 
the shores of the sea of Aral in Central Asia. 

The chalk is not throughout alike in texture ; hard beds 
alternate with others that are soft — beds with flints like 
plum -cake, and beds without, like white Spanish bread. 

We are accustomed in England to chalk in rolling downs, 
except where bitten into by the sea, but elsewhere it is 
riven, and presents cliifs, and these cliffs are not at all 
like that of Shakespeare at Dover, but overhang, where 
hard beds alternate with others that are friable. These 
latter are corroded by the weather, and leave the more 
compact projecting like the roofs of penthouses. They are 
furrowed horizontally, licked smooth by the wind and 
rain. Not only so, but the chalk cliffs are riddled with 
caves, that are ancient water-courses. The rain falling 
on the surface is drunk by the thirsty soil, and it sinks 
till, finding where the chalk is tender, it forms a channel 
and flows as a subterranean rill, spouts forth on the face 
of the crags, till sinking still lower, it finds an exit at the 
bottom of the cliff, when it leaves its ancient conduit high 
and dry. 

But before the chalk was tossed aloft there had been 
an earlier upheaval from the depths of the ocean, that 
of the Jurassic limestone. This was built up by coral 
insects working indefatigably through long ages, piling 
up their structures, as the sea-bottom slowly sank, straining 
ever higher, till at length their building was crushed together 
and projected on high, to form elevated plateaux, as the 
Causses of Quercy, and Alpine ranges, as the Dolomites 
of Brixen. But in the uplifting of this deposit, as it 
was inelastic, the strain split it in every direction, and 
down the rifts thus formed danced the torrents from higher 
granitic and schistous ranges, forming the gorges of the 
Tarn, the Ardeche, the Herault, the Gaves, and the Timee, 
in France. 

18 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

It has been a puzzle to decide which appeared first, the 
egg out of which the fowl was hatched, or the hen which 
laid the egg ; and it is an equal puzzle to the anthropologist 
to say whether man was first brought into existence as a 
babe or in maturity. In both cases he would be helpless. 
The babe would need its mother, and the man be paralysed 
into incapacity through lack of experience. But without 
stopping to debate this question, we may conclude that 
naked, shivering and homeless humanity would have to be 
pupil to the beasts to learn where to shelter his head. 
Where did man first appear ? Where was the Garden of 
Eden ? Indisputably on the chalk. There he found all his 
first demands supplied. The walls of cretaceous rock fur- 
nished him with shelter under its ledges of overhanging 
beds, flints out of which to fashion his tools, and nodules 
of pyrites wherewith to kindle a fire. Providence through 
aeons had built up the chalk to be man's first home. 

Incontestably, the great centres of population in the 
primeval ages were the chalklands, and next to them those 
of limestone. The chalk first, for it furnished man with 
flints, and the limestone next when he had learned to 
barter. 

He could have lived nowhere else, till, after the lapse of 
ages, he had developed invention and adaptability. Besant 
and Rice, in "Ready-money Mortiboy," speak of Divine 
Discontent as the motive power impelling man to progress. 
Not till the chalk and the limestone shelters were stocked, 
and could hold no more, would men be driven to invent for 
themselves other dwellings. The first men being sent into 
the world without a natural coat of fur or feathers, would 
settle into caves or under overhanging roofs of rock, and 
with flint picked out of it, chipped and pointed, secure the 
flesh of the beast for food and its hide for clothing. Having 
accomplished this, man would sit down complacently for 
long ages. Indeed, there are certain branches of the human 

19 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

family that have progressed no further and display no ambi- 
tion to advance. 

Only when the districts of chalk and limestone were over- 
stocked would the overflow be constrained to look elsewhere 
for shelter. Then some daring innovators, driven from the 
favoured land, would construct habitations by grubbing 
into the soil, and covering them with a roof of turf. The 
ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, lived in underground 
cabins, heaped over with dung to keep them warm during 
the long winter. With the invention of the earthenware 
stove, the German Bauer has been enabled to rise above the 
surface; but he cherishes the manure round his house, so 
to speak, about his feet, as affectionately as when it warmed 
his head. 

For a long time it was supposed that our British ancestors 
lived in pit dwellings, and whole clusters of them were 
recorded and mapped on the Yorkshire Wolds, and a 
British metropolis of them, Caer Penselcoit, was reported 
in Somersetshire. Habitations sunk deep in the rock, with 
only a roof above ground. But the spade has cracked these 
archaeological theories like filberts, and has proved that the 
pits in the wolds were sunk after iron ore, or those in 
Somerset were burrowings for the extraction of chert.^ But 
the original paleolithic man did not get beyond the cavern 
or the rock-shelter. This latter was a retreat beneath an 
overhanging stratum of hard rock, screened against the 
weather by a curtain of skins. And why should he wish to 
change so long as these were available.? We, from our 
advanced position, sitting in padded arm-chairs, before a 
coal fire, can see that there was room for improvement ; but 

^ Atkinson, "Forty Years in a Moorland Parish." Lond. 1891, p. 161, 
et seq. Some pits are, however, ^not so dubious. At Hurstbourne, in Hants, 
pit habitations have been explored ; others, in Kent and Oxfordshire, un- 
doubtedly once dwelt in. In one of the Kentish pits 900 flakes and cores 
of flint were found. The Chysoyster huts in Cornwall and the " Picts 
houses " in Scotland were built up of stones, underground. 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

he could not. The rock-dwelling was commodious, dry, 
warm in winter and cool in summer, and it cost him no 
trouble to fashion it, or keep it in repair. He had not the 
prophetic eye to look forward to the arm-chair and the coal 
fire. Indeed, at all periods, down to the present day, those 
who desire to lead the simple life, and those who have been 
reared in these nature-formed dwelling-places, feel no 
ambition to occupy stone-built houses. In North Devon 
the cottages are reared of cob, kneaded clay, and thatched, 
A squire on his estate pulled down those he possessed and 
built in their place brick houses with slated roofs. The 
cottagers bitterly resented the change, their old mud-hovels 
were so much warmer. And in like manner the primeval 
man would not exchange his ahris for a structural dwelling 
unless constrained so to do. 

, The ancients knew that the first homes of mankind were 
grottoes. They wrote of Troglodytes in Africa and of cave- 
dwellers in Liguria. In Arabia Petraea, a highly civilized 
people converted their simple rock-dwellings into sumptuous 
palaces. 

I might fill pages with quotations to the purpose from the 
classic authors, but the reader would skip them all. It is 
not my intention to give a detailed account of the pre- 
historic cave-dwellers. They have been written about 
repeatedly. In 1882, Dr. Buckland published the results of 
his exploration of the Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire in 
Reliquice Diluviance, and sought to establish that the 
remains there found pertained to the men who were swept 
away by Noah^s flood. The publication of Sir Charles 
LyalPs "The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of 
Man,"" in 1863, was a shock to all such as clung to the 
traditional view that these deposits were due to a cosmic 
deluge, and that man was created 4004 B.C. 

At first the announcements proving the antiquity of man 
were received with orthodox incredulity, because, although 

21 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

the strata, in which the remains were found, are the most 
modern of all earth's formations, still the testimony so com- 
pletely contravened traditional beliefs, that the most con- 
clusive evidence was required for its proof. Such evidence 
has been found, and is so strong, and so cumulative in 
character as to be now generally accepted as conclusive. 

Evidence substantiating the thesis of Lyall had been 
accumulating, and ^the researches of Lartet and Christy 
in the Vezere valley, published in 1865-75, as Reliquice 
Aquitanicce, conclusively proved that man in Perigord had 
been a naked savage, contemporary with the mammoth, 
the reindeer and the cave-bear, that he had not learned 
to domesticate animals, to sow fields, to make pots, and 
that he was entirely ignorant of the use of the metals. 

Since then, in the valley of the Vezere, Les Eyzies in the 
Department of Dordogne, has become a classic spot. I have 
already described it in another work,^ but I must here 
say a few more words concerning it. On reaching the 
valley of the Vezere by the train from Perigueux, one is 
swung down from the plateau into a trough between steep 
scarps of chalk-rock that rise from 150 to 300 feet above 
the placid river. These scarps have been ploughed by the 
weather in long horizontal furrows, so that they lean over 
as though desirous of contemplating their dirty faces in 
the limpid water. Out of their clefts spring evergreen 
oaks, juniper, box and sloe-bushes. Moss and lichen stain 
the white walls that are streaked by black tricklings from 
above, and are accordingly not beautiful — their faces are 
like that of a pale, dirty, and weeping child with a cold 
in its head, who does not use a pocket-handkerchief. 
Jackdaws haunt the upper ledges and smaller caves that 
gape on all sides chattering like boys escaped from school, 
and anon a raven starts forth and hoarsely calls for silence. 

At the foot of the stooping crags, bowing to each other 

^ " The Deserts of Southern I^rance." Lond., Methuen, 1894. 
22 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

across the stream, lie masses that have broken from above, 
and atop and behind these is to be seen a string of cottages 
built into the rock, taking advantage of the overarching 
stratum of hard chalk ; and cutting into it are russet, tiled 
roofs, where the cottagers have sought to expand beyond the 
natural shelter : they are in an intermediate position. Just 
as I have seen a caddis-worm emancipating itself from its 
cage, half in as a worm, half out as a fly. 

Nature would seem to have specially favoured this little 
nook of France, which must have been the Eden of primeval 
man on Gallic soil. There he found ready-made habitations, 
a river abounding in fish, a forest teeming with game ; 
constrained periodically to descend from the waterless 
plateaux, at such points as favoured a descent, to slake 
their thirst at the stream, and there was the nude hunter 
lurking in the scrub or behind a stone, with bow or spear 
awaiting his prey — ^his dinner and his jacket. 

What beasts did he slay ? The wild horse, with huge 
head, was driven by him over the edge of the precipice, and 
when it fell with broken limbs or spine, was cut up with 
flint knives and greedily devoured. The reindeer was also 
hunted, and the cumbersome mammoth enabled a whole 
tribe to gorge itself. 

The grottoes perforating the cliff, like bubbles in Gruyere 
cheese, have been occupied consecutively to the present day. 
Opposite to Les Eyzies, hanging like a net or skein of black 
thread to the face of the precipice, is a hotel, part gallery, 
part cave — FAuberge du Paradis ; and a notice in large 
capitals invites the visitor to a " Course aux Canards." 

When I was last there, reaching the tavern by a ladder 
erected in a grotto, I learned that an American couple on 
their honeymoon had recently slept in the guest-chamber 
scooped out of the living rock. The kitchen itself is a 
cavern, and in it are shelves, staged against the rock, offering 
Chartreuse, green and yellow, Benedictine, and Creme de 

23 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

Men the. The proprietor also possesses a gramophone, 
and its strident notes we may well suppose imitate the 
tones of the first inhabitants of this den. Of the Roc de 
Tayac, in and against which this paradisaical hotel is plas- 
tered, I shall have more to say in another chapter. 

The first men who settled in this favoured valley under 
shelters open to the blaze of the sun, in a soft and pleasant 
climate, where the air when not in proximity to men, is 
scented with mint, marjoram and juniper, where with little 
trouble a salmon might be harpooned, must have multiplied 
enormously — for every overhanging rock, every cavern, 
even every fallen block of stone, has been utilised as a 
habitation. Where a block has fallen, the prehistoric 
men scratched the earth away from beneath it, and couched 
in the trench. The ground by the river when turned up 
is black with the charcoal from their fires. A very little 
research will reward the visitor with a pocketful of flint 
knives and scrapers. And this is what is found not only on 
the main artery, but on all the lateral veins of water — 
wherever the cretaceous rocks project and invite to take 
shelter under them. Since the researches of Lartet and 
Christy, it has been known as an established fact that these 
savages were indued with rare artistic skill. Their delinea- 
tions with a flint point on ivory and bone, of the mammoth, 
reindeer, and horse, are so masterly that these men stand 
forth as the spiritual ancestors of Landseer and Rosa 
Bonheur. And what is also remarkable is that the race 
which succeeded, that which discovered the use of metal, 
was devoid of the artistic sense, and their attempts at 
delineation are like the scribbling of an infant. 

Of late years fresh discoveries have been made, revealing 
the fact that the Paleolithic men were able to paint as well 
as to engrave. In Les Combarelles and at Font-de-Gaume, 
far in the depths, where no light reaches, the walls have 
been found turned into a veritable picture-gallery. In 

ii4? 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

the latter are twenty-four paintings ; in the former 
forty-two. 

Doctor Capitan and the Abbe Breuil were the first to 
discover the paintings in Les Combarelles. In an account 
read before the Academy of Sciences, they say : '' Most 
frequently, the animals whose contours are indicated by a 
black outline, have all the surface thus circumscribed, 
entirely covered with red ochre. In some cases certain parts, 
such as the head of the urochs, seems to have been painted 
over with black and red together, so as to produce a brown 
tint. In other cases the head of the beast is black, and the 
rest of the body brown. This is veritable fresco painting, 
and the colour was usually applied after the outline had 
been graven in the stone. At other times some shading is 
added by hatching supplied after the outline had been drawn. 
Finally, the contours are occasionally thrown into promi- 
nence by scraping away the surface of the rock around, 
so as to give to the figures the appearance of being in low 
reHef." 

These wall paintings are by no means unique. They 
have been found as well at Pair-sur-Pair in Gironde, and in 
the grotto of Altamira at Santillana del Mar, in the north 
of Spain. 

Still more recently an additional revelation as to the 
artistic skill of primeval man has been made ; in a cave 
hitherto unexplored has been discovered actual sculpture 
with rounded forms, of extinct beasts. 

These discoveries appeared incredible, first, because it was 
not considered possible that paintings of such a vastly 
remote antiquity could remain fresh and distinguishable, 
and secondly, because it was not thought that paintings and 
sculpture could be executed in the depths of a rayless cavern, 
and artificial light have left no traces in a deposit of soot 
on the roof. 

But it must be remembered that these subterranean 

25 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

passages have been sealed up from time immemorial, and sub- 
jected to no invasion by man or beast, or to any change 
of air or temperature. And secondly, that the artists 
obtained light from melted fat in stone bowls on the floor, 
in which was a wick of pith ; and such lamps would hardly 
discolour ceiling or walls. Of the genuineness of these 
paintings and sculptures there can be no question, from 
the fact that some are partly glazed over and some half 
obliterated by stalagmitic deposits. 

Another discovery made in the Mas d'Azil in Arriege, is 
of painted pebbles and fan-shells that had served as paint- 
pots.^ The pebbles had been decorated with spots, stripes, 
zig-zags, crosses, and various rude figures ; and these were 
associated with paleolithic tools. In the chalk of Cham- 
pagne, where there are no cliffs, whole villages of underground 
habitations have been discovered, but none of these go back 
to the earliest age of all ; they belong to various epochs ; 
but the first to excavate them was the Neolithic man, he 
who raised the rude stone monuments elsewhere. He had 
learned to domesticate the ox and the sheep, had made of 
the dog the friend of man. His wife span and he delved ; 
he dug the clay, and she formed it with her fingers into 
vessels, on which to this day her finger-prints may be 
found. 

These caves are hollowed out in a thick bed of cretaceous 
rock. The habitations are divided into two unequal parts 
by a wall cut in the living chalk. To penetrate into the 
innermost portion of the cave, one has to descend by steps 
cut in the stone, and these steps bear indications of long 
usage. The entrance is hewn out of a massive screen of 
rock, left for the purpose, and on each side of the doorway 
the edges show the rebate which served to receive a wooden 
door-frame. Two small holes on the right and left were 
used for fixing bars across to hold the door fast. A good 
^ Piette (E.), Les Galets colorres du Mas d'Azil. Paris, 1896. 

26 



PREHISTORIC GAVE-DWELLERS 

many of these caves are provided with a ventilating shaft, 
and some skilful contrivances were had recourse to for 
keeping out water. Inside are shelves, recesses cut in the 
chalk, for lamps, and to serve as cupboards. But probably 
these are due to later occupants. The Baron de Baye, who 
explored these caves, picked up worked flints, showing that 
their primitive occupants had been men of the prehistoric 
age, and other caves associated with them that were sepul- 
chral were indisputably of the Neolithic age.^ 

Mankind progresses not smoothly, as by a sliding carpet 
ascent, but by rugged steps broken by gaps. He halts long 
on one stage before taking the next. Often he remains 
stationary, unable to form resolution to step forward ; some- 
times even has turned round and retrograded. 

The stream of civilisation flows on like a river, it is 
rapid in mid-current, slow at the sides, and has its back- 
waters. At best, civilisation advances by spirals. The 
native of New Guinea still employs stone tools ; whilst an 
Englishman can get a nest of matches for twopence, an 
Indian laboriously kindles a fire with a couple of sticks. 
The prehistoric hunter of Solutre devoured the horse. In 
the time of Horace so did the Concanni of Spain. In the 
reign of Hakon, Athelstan's foster son, horseflesh formed the 
sacrificial meal of the Norseman. At the present day, as 
Mr. Lloyd George assures us, the haggard, ill-paid German 
mechanic breaks his long fast on black bread with rare 
meals of horseflesh. 

At La Laugerie Basse, on the right bank of the Vezere, 
is a vast accumulation of fallen rocks, encumbering the 
ground for at least thirty-five feet in height under the 
overhanging cornice. The fallen matter consists of the 
disintegration of the projecting lip. Against the cliff*, 
under the shelter of the rock, as already said, are cottages 
with lean-to roofs, internally with the back and with at 
^ DeBaje {J.), L^Archeologie prehistorique. Paris, 1888. 

27 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

least half the ceiling composed of the rock. In one of 
these Lartet and Christy began to sink a pit, beside the 
owner''s bed, and the work was carried on to conclusion 
by the late Dr. Massenat. The well was driven down 
through successive stages of Man ; deposits from the sous 
dropped and trampled into the earth floor by the children 
of the cottagers till the virgin soil was reached ; and there, 
lying on his side, with his hands to his head for protection, 
and with a block of fallen rock crushing his thigh^ lay the 
first prehistoric occupant of this shelter. 

On the Causse de Larzac is Navacelles, in Gard; you 
walk over the arid plain with nothing in sight ; and all at 
once are brought to a standstill. You find yourself at the 
edge of a crater 965 feet deep, the sides in most places 
precipitous, and the bottom is reached only by a zig-zag 
path. In the face of one of the cliff's is the grotto of 
Blandas, that has been occupied since remote ages. A 
methodical exploration has revealed a spearhead of silex, 
a bronze axe, bone bracelets, a coin of the Hundred Years' 
War, and lastly a little pin-cushion of cloth in the shape of 
a heart, ornamented with metal crosses, the relic of some 
refugee in the Reign of Terror, hiding to escape the 
guillotine. 

At Conduche, where the Cele slides into the Lot, high up 
in the yellow and grey limestone precipice is a cave, now 
accessible only by a ladder. Hither ascended a cantonnier 
when the new road was made up the valley, and here he 
found chipped flints of primeval man, a polished celt, a 
scrap of Samian ware, and in a niche at the side sealed up 
with stalactite, a tiny earthenware pitcher 2 J inches high, 
a leaden spindle- whorl, some shells, and a toy sheep- bell. 
Here a little shepherdess during the stormy times, when the 
Routiers ravaged the country, had her refuge while she 
watched her flock of goats, and here made her doll's house. 

The stalactite cavern of Han in the Ardennes is visited 

28 



PREHISTORIC CAVE-DWELLERS 

yearly by crowds. You may see highly coloured illustrations 
of its interior illumined by Bengal lights in all the Belgian 
and many of the French railway stations. What is now 
a peepshow was in past ages a habitation and a home. 
In it the soil in successive layers has revealed objects 
belonging to successive periods in the history of mankind. 
Its floor has been in fact a Book of the Revelation of the 
Past, whose seals have been opened, and it has disclosed 
page by page the history of humanity, from the present, 
read backwards to the beginning. 

At the bottom of all the deposits were discoveued the 
remains of the very earliest inhabitants, with their hearths 
about which they sat in nudity and split bones to extract 
the marrow, trimmed flints, worked horn, necklaces of 
pierced wolf and bears' teeth; then potsherds formed by 
hand long before the invention of the wheel; higher up 
were the arms and utensils of the bronze age, and the 
weights of nets. Above these came the remains of the iron 
age and wheel-turned crocks. A still higher stratum 
surrendered a weight of a scale stamped with an effigy of 
the crusading king, S. Louis (1226-1270), and finally francs 
bearing the profile of a king, the reverse in every moral 
characteristic of Louis the Saint — that of Leopold of Congo 
notoriety. 



CHAPTER II 

MODERN TROGLODYTES 

HERODOTUS, speaking of the Ligurians, says that 
they spent the night in the open air, rarely in huts, 
but that they usually inhabited caverns. Every 
traveller who goes to the Riviera, the old Ligurian shore, 
knows, but knows only by a passing glance, the Etang de 
Berre, that inland sea, blue as a sapphire, wave! ess, girt 
about by white hills, and perhaps he wonders that Toulon 
should have been selected as a naval port, when there was 
this one, deeper, and excavated by Nature to serve as a 
harbour. The rocks of S. Chamas that look down on this 
peaceful sheet of water, rarely traversed by a sail, are 
riddled with caves, still inhabited, as they were when 
Herodotus wrote 450 years before the Christian era. 

The following account of an underground town in Pales- 
tine is from the pen of Consul Wetzstein, and describes one 
in the Hauran. "I visited old Edrei — the subterranean 
labyrinthic residence of King Og — on the east side of the 
Zanite hills. Two sons of the sheikh of the village — one 
fourteen and the other sixteen years of age — accompanied 
me. We took with us a box of matches and two candles. 
After we had gone down the slope for some time, we came 
to a dozen rooms which, at present, are used as goat stalls 
and storerooms for straw. The passage became gradually 
smaller, until at last we were compelled to lie down flat and 
creep along. This extremely difficult and uncomfortable 
progress lasted for about eight minutes, when we were 
obliged to jump down a steep well, several feet in depth. 

30 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

Here I noticed that the younger of my two attendants had 
remained behind, being afraid to follow us; but probably 
it was more from fear of the unknown European than of the 
dark and winding passages before us. 

" We now found ourselves in a broad street, which had 
dwellings on both sides, whose height and width left nothing 
to be desired. The temperature was mild, the air free from 
unpleasant odours, and I felt not the smallest difficulty in 
breathing. Further along there were several cross-streets, 
and my guide called my attention to a hole in the ceiling 
for air, like three others which I afterwards saw, now closed 
from above. Soon after we came to a market-place, where, 
for a long distance, on both sides of the pretty broad street, 
were numerous shops in the walls, exactly in the style of the 
shops seen in Syrian cities. After a while we turned into a 
side street, where a great hall, whose roof was supported by 
four pillars, attracted my attention. The roof, or ceiling, 
was formed of a single slab of jasper, perfectly smooth and 
of immense size, in which I was unable to perceive the 
slightest crack. 

" The rooms, for the most part, had no supports. The 
doors were often made of a single square stone, and here 
and there I also noticed fallen columns. After we had 
passed several cross-alleys or streets, and before we had 
reached the middle of the subterranean city, my attendant's 
light went out. As he was lighting again by mine, it 
occurred to me that possibly both our lights might be 
extinguished, and I asked the boy if he had any matches. 
'No,' he replied, 'my brother has them.' 'Could you 
find your way back if the lights were put out ? ' ' Im- 
possible,' he replied. For a moment I began to be alarmed 
at this underworld, and urged an immediate return. 
Without much difficulty we got back to the market- 
place and from hence the youngster knew the way well 
enough. Thus, after a sojourn of more than an hour 

31 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

and a half in this labyrinth, I again greeted the light of 
day."! 

I have quoted this somewhat lengthy account because, as 
we shall see in the sequel, the subterranean dwellings and 
above all refuges in Europe, bear to this town of King Og 
of Bashan a marked resemblance. 

Within four hours of Paris by Chartres and Sarge is the 
town of Montoire with a clean inn, Le Cheval Rouge, and 
next station down the Loir is Troo. The Loir, male, is the 
river, not La Loire of the feminine gender. Le Loir is a 
river that rises in the north-east, traverses the fertile upland 
plain of Beauce, and falls into and is lost in La Loire at 
Angers. It is a river rarely visited by English tourists, but 
it does not deserve to be overlooked. It has cut for itself 
a furrow in the chalk tufa, and the hospitable cliffs on each 
side offer a home to any vagrant who cares to scratch for 
himself a hole in the friable face, wherein to shelter his 
head. 

Troo bears a certain resemblance to the city of Og. 
Originally it was all underground, but in process of time 
it effervesced, bubbled out of its holes, and is now but half 
troglodyte. The heights that form the Northern ^declivity 
of the valley of the Loir come to an abrupt end here, and 
have been sawn through by a small stream creating a natural 
fosse, isolating the hill of Troo that is attached to the 
plateau only on the North. The hill rises steeply from 
the river to a crest occupied by a Romanesque church re- 
cently scoured to the whiteness of flour, and beside it is a 
mighty tumulus, planted with trees. 

Formerly on this same height stood a castle, but this has 
been so completely broken down that nothing remains of it 
but a few substructures and its well. 

Troo was at one time a walled town, and as it was the 
key to the valley of the Loir, was hotly contested between 
^ Reisehericht in Hauran, ii., pp. 47-48. 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

the English and French during three hundred years, and 
later, between Catholics and Huguenots. The place was 
besieged by Mercader, the captain under Richard Coeur-de- 
Lion, who had flayed alive the slayer of his master under 
the walls of Caylus, although Richard had promised him 
immunity. Here Mercader met his death, and was buried 
under a mound that is still shown. 

But what makes Troo especially interesting is that the 
whole height is like a sponge, perforated with passages 
giving access to halls, some of which are circular, and into 
store-chambers; and most of the houses are wholly or in 
part underground. The caves that are inhabited are staged 
one above another, some reached by stairs that are little 
better than ladders, and the subterranean passages leading 
from them form a labyrinth within the bowels of the hill, 
and run in superposed storeys. In one that I entered was 
an oven, with a well at its side. A little further, in a large 
hall, a circular hole in the floor unfenced gave access by- 
rope or ladder to a lower range of galleries. Any one ex- 
ploring by the feeble light of a single candle, without a 
guide, might be precipitated down this abyss without know- 
ing that there was a gaping opening before him. A long 
ascending passage, with niches in the sides for lamps, leads 
to where the fibres of the roots of the trees on the mound 
above have penetrated and are hanging down. It is said 
that the gallery led on to the castle, but since this latter 
has been ruined it has been blocked. In the holes whence 
flints have dropped spiders harbour, that feed on ghostly 
moths which flit in the pitch darkness, and when caught 
between the fingers resolve themselves into a trace of silver 
dust. But on what did these spectral moths feed ? A 
pallid boy of sixteen who guided me about the town told 
me that he had been born in a cave ; that he slept in one 
every night, and worked underground all day. His large 
brown eyes could see objects in the dark where all was of 

33 c 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

inky blackness to me. It is astonishing with what uncon- 
cern mites of children romp and ramble through these 
corridors, where there is danger not only on account of 
pitfalls, but also of the roof falling in. Where I went, 
guided by a child of ten, every now and then I was warned 
— " Prenez garde, c'est ecroule." 

The town — it was a town once, but now contains 783 
inhabitants only — is partly built at the foot of the bluff, but 
very few houses are without excavated chambers, store-places 
or stables. The cafe looks ordinary enough, but enter, and 
you find yourself in a dungeon. There is but one street — 
La Grande Rue — and that has space and landscape on one 
side, and houses built against and into the rock on the other. 
A notice at the entrance to the street warns that no heavy 
traffic, not much above the weight of a perambulator, is 
permitted to pass along it, for the roadway runs over the 
tops of houses. A waggon might crash through into the 
chamber of a bedridden beldame, and a motor be precipitated 
downwards to salt the soup of a wife stirring it for her 
husband's supper. At Troo chimneys bristle everywhere, 
making the hill resemble a pin-cushion or a piece of larded 
veal. There are in the depth of the hill wells, and to these 
mothers fearlessly despatch their children to fill a pitcher, 
as often as not without a light. 

Many of the cave-dwellings have but a ledge a few feet 
wide, and perhaps only a dozen or twenty feet long before 
their doors, and at the extreme edge one may see the 
children standing, unaffected with giddiness, like a row of 
swallows, contemplating the visitor. I cannot say how it 
may be with the lower houses, but those high up are pro- 
nouncedly odoriferous ; for the inhabitants have no means of 
disposing of their garbage save by exposing it on their little 
shelves to be dried up by the sun, or washed down iby the 
rain over the windows and doors of their neighbours beneath. 

I wonder how a sanitary officer would tackle the problem 

34 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

of sweetening Troo. If he attempted to envelop it in a 
cobweb of socketed drainpipes he would get into a tangle 
with the chimneys; to carry them underground would not 
be feasible, as he would have to run them through kitchens, 
bedrooms and salles-a-manger. But even did he make this 
cobweb, he could not flush his pipes, as the water is at the 
bottom of the hill. The ancient Gauls and Britons had a 
practical and ingenious method of disposing of their refuse. 
They dug shafts in the chalk, shaped like bottles, and all 
the rubbish they desired to get rid of was consigned to 
these, till they were full, when they planted a tree on the 
top and opened another. Great numbers of these puticuli 
have been found in France. They have been likewise un- 
earthed on the chalk downs of England. They were used 
as well for the graves of slaves. Now the good citizens of 
Troo cannot employ the pitfalls in their caves for this 
purpose, or the wells would be contaminated. As it is, those 
wells are supplied from the rain-water falling on the hill 
of Troo and filtering down, ingeniously avoiding the passages 
and halls. There are, however, some dripping caverns in- 
crusted with stalagmitic deposit. But conceive of the sponge 
of Troo acting as a filter through two thousand years and 
never renovated. Not the most impressive teetotal orator 
would make me a water drinker were I a citizen of Troo. 

At the summit of the hill is Le Puit qui parle, the 
Talking Well. It is 140 feet deep, and is shaped like a 
bottle. If any one speaks near .the mouth, it soon after 
repeats in an extraordinary articulate manner the last 
two syllables uttered, a veritable " Jocosa Imago." Drop in 
a pin, and after eight seconds its click is heard as it touches 
the water. A stone produces a veritable detonation. 

There is another Troglodyte town, also formerly walled, 
Les Roches, above Montoire. It is occupied by six hundred 
souls, and most of the houses are dug out of the rock. There 
is hardly space for the road to run between the Loir and 

35 



MODEHN TROGLODYTES 

the crags, and the church has to curl itself like a dog 
going to sleep to fit the area allowed it. This rock forms 
perpendicular tblufFs of chalk tufa, and masses of fallen 
stone lie at their feet. Some rocks overhang, and the 
whole of this cliff and the fallen blocks have been 
drilled with openings and converted into habitations for 
man and for beast. Doors and windows have been 
cut in the stone, which has been hollowed out as maggots 
clear out the kernel of a nut. Rooms, kitchens, cellars, 
stables have been thus contrived. The chimneys run up 
the rocks, and through them; and on the plateau above 
open as wells, but are surrounded by a breastwork of 
bricks to protect them against the rain, which might form 
a rill that would decant playfully down the opening in 
a waterfall. In winter, when all hearths are lighted, the 
smoke issuing from all these little structures has the effect 
of a series of steaming saucepans. 

A little way up the river outside the walls is the Chateau 
de Boydan, half scooped out of the cliff, with pretty six- 
teenth century mullioned and transomed windows. At 
right angles to the rock a wing was thrown out to contain 
the state apartments with their fireplaces and chimneys. 
But unfortunately it was tacking on of new cloth to the 
old garment, and the face of the rock slid down carrying 
with it the side walls and windows, and has left the gable 
containing the handsome stone chimney-pieces and the 
chimneys as an isolated fragment. Just beyond, excavated 
in the bluff, is the chapel of S. Gervais, consisting of two 
portions, an outer and an inner chamber. But the cliff 
face had been cut for the windows too thin, and the whole 
slid away at the same time probably as the disaster hap- 
pened to the castle, and has exposed the interior of this 
monolithic church. There are remains of frescoes on the 
wall painted with considerable spirit ; a king on horseback 
blowing a horn, and behind him a huntsman armed with 

36 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

a boar-spear. Benches cut in the rock surround the 
sanctuary. Externally a niche contains a rude image of 
the saint. 

Still nearer to Montoire, on the left bank of the Loir is 
Lavardin; high up on the side of the hill, completely 
screened by a dense wood, is a hamlet of Troglodytes. The 
principal excavation served originally as a hermitage, and 
is called La Grotte des Vierges. There is a range of rock- 
dwellings in connection with it, some inhabited and some 
abandoned. The Grotte des Vierges is entered by steps 
descending into the principal chamber that is lighted by a 
window and is furnished with a fireplace. At one of the 
angles is a circular pit, six feet deep, with a groove at top 
for the reception of a cover. This was a silo for grain. 
From the first chamber entrance is obtained to a second 
much larger, that has in it a fireplace as well, and a stair- 
case leading into a little oratory in which is an altar. The 
same staircase communicates with a lower chamber, probably 
intended as a cellar, for though the hermit might be frugal 
in meat there was no ban on the drink. The rock-dwelling 
nearest to the Grotte des Vierges on the left hand was of 
considerable proportions and pretence. It consisted of large 
halls, and was in several stages. The windows are broken 
away, the floors are gone, and it is reduced to a wreck. 
Below this series of cave-dwellings is the Fountain of 
Anduee of crystal water, supposed to be endowed with 
miraculous properties. The whole hill is moreover pierced 
with galleries and store-chambers, and served as a refuge in 
time of war, in which the villagers of Lavardin concealed 
their goods. The noble ruin of the castle shows that it 
was once of great majesty. It was battered down by the 
Huguenots, who for the purpose dragged a cannon to the 
top of the church tower. 

Nearer to Vendome is the Chateau of Rochambeau. The 
present mansion that has replaced the ancient castle is a 

37 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

very insignificant and tasteless structure. All the interest 
it possesses consists in its dependencies that are rock-hewn. 
The bass-court is reached through a long and lofty gallery 
bored athwart the rock, and issuing from it we find our- 
selves in a sort of open well, probably originally natural 
but appropriated and adapted by man to his needs. This 
vast depression, the walls of which are seventy-five feet high, 
is circular, and measures eighty feet in diameter. Round it 
are cellars and chambers for domestic purposes. Others are 
accessible from the gallery that leads to the court. One of 
them, the Cave-Noire, possesses a chimney bored upwards 
through the rock to the level of the surface. Another 
peculiarity of this cavern is that along one side, through- 
out its length, 120 feet, are rings cut in the rock showing 
tokens of having been fretted by usage. They are at the height 
of four feet above the soil, and are on an average four feet 
ten inches apart. A second range is three feet or four feet 
higher up. In an adjoining cavern are similar ranges of rings. 
A third is cut almost at the level of the soil. Precisely the 
same arrangement is to be found at Varennes hard by in 
artificial caves still employed as stables, and some as dwell- 
ings for families. 

In the park is shown the cave in which the Duke of 
Beaufort, the Roi des Halles, was concealed when he escaped 
from the prison of Vincennes. Francois de Vendome, Duke 
of Beaufort, was a grandson of Henri Quatre, a man of 
inordinate conceit and of very limited intelligence. During 
the regency that began in 1643, he obtained the confidence 
of Anne of Austria, but his vanity rendered him insupport- 
able, and he went out of his way to insult the regent, so 
that she sent him to Vincennes. Voltaire passes a severe 
judgment on him. He says of the Duke : " He was the idol 
of the people, and the instrument employed by able men 
for stirring them up into revolt; he was the object of the 
raillery of the Court, and of the Fronde as well. He was 

38 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

always spoken of as the Roi des Halles, the Market-King." 
One day he asked the President Bellevue whether he did 
not think that he — Beaufort — would change the face of 
affairs if he boxed the ears of the Duke of Elbeuf. " I do 
not think such an act would change anything but the face 
of the Duke of Elbeuf," gravely replied the magistrate. 

There are in the Quartier S. Lubin at Vendome chambers 
still occupied in the face of the cliff, high up and reached 
by structural galleries. 

At Lisle, on the river above Vendome, are many caves, 
one of which was the hospital or Maladerie. 

Above Tours and Marmoutier, on the road to Vouvray, is 
La Roche Gorbon. The cliff is pierced with windows and 
doors, and niches for a pigeonry. This, till comparatively 
recently, was a truly Troglodyte village. But well-to-do 
inhabitants of Tours have taken a fancy to the site and 
have reared pretentious villas that mask the face of the cliff', 
and with the advent of these rich people the humble cave- 
dwellers have " flitted." One singular feature remains, how- 
ever, unspoiled. A mass of the cretaceous tufa has slipped 
bodily down to the foot of the crag, against which it leans 
in an inclined position. This was eviscerated and converted 
into two cottages, but the cottagers have been ejected, and 
it is now a villa residence. An acquaintance at Tours has 
rented it for his family as a summer seat. 

Some fifty or sixty years ago La Roche Corbon was '' a 
village sculptured up the broken face of the rocks, with 
considerable skill, and what with creeping vines, snatches of 
hanging gardens, an attempt here and there at a division of 
tenements, by way of slight partitions cut from the surface, 
wreaths of blue smoke issuing out of apertures and curling 
up the front, and the old feudal tower, called Lanterne de la 
Roche Corbon, crowning the summit, the superincumbent 
pinnacle of excavated rock on which it stands looking sa 
if it were ready to fall and crush the whole population 

39 



MODEHN TROGLODYTES 

beneath, this lithographed village has altogether a curiously 
picturesque look." But at Beaumont-la-Ronce, north of 
Tours, may be seen a whole street of cave habitations still 
occupied, wreathed with vines and traveller's joy. 

In the department of Maine et Loire, and in a portion of 
Vienne, whole villages are underground. 

There is often very valuable vineyard land that has to be 
walled round and every portion economised. What is done 
is this : the owner digs a quarry in the surface ; this forms a 
sort of pit accessible on one side, the stone taken from this 
being employed to fence round his property. Then, for his 
own dwelling, he cuts out chambers in the rock under his 
vineyard, looking through windows and a door into the 
quarry hole. For a chimney he bores upwards, and then 
builds round the opening a square block of masonry, out of 
which the smoke escapes. 

A whole village, or rather hamlet, may therefore consist of 
— as far as one can see — nothing but a series of chimneys 
standing on the ground among the vines. Those who desire 
to discover the inhabitants must descend into the quarries to 
these rabbit warrens. 

In some villages the people live half above ground and 
half below. At St. Leger, near Loudun, is a fine mediaeval 
castle, with a fosse round it cut out of the rock ; and this 
fosse is alive with people who have grubbed out houses for 
themselves in the rock through which the moat (which is 
dry) has been excavated. 

A very singular settlement is that of Ezy in the valley 
of the Eure, at the extreme limit of the department of that 
name. About a kilometre from the village, along the side of 
the railway, are numerous subterranean habitations in three 
storeys, with platforms before them which are horizontal. 
These were the dwellings of the owners of the vines which 
at one time covered the hill overhead. But these vineyards 
failed, and the dwellings were abandoned. However, after 

40 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

their abandonment, it was customary at times for the 
villagers to resort to them for drinking and dancing bouts. 
This tradition continues still in force, and on Easter Tuesday 
these cave dwellings are visited, and there is merrymaking 
in them. Between the caves at one time some little taverns 
had been erected, but these also fell into ruin some forty or 
fifty years ago. 

Since then a range of these caverns has become the refuge 
of a special population of social and moral outcasts. There 
they live in the utmost misery. The population consists of 
about eighty persons, male and female and children. 

The history of the adults will hardly bear looking into. 
None of these people have any fixed occupation, and it is 
difficult to discover how they subsist. In fact, the life of 
every one of them is a problem. One might have supposed 
that they maintained a precarious existence by thieving 
or by begging, as they are far below the ordinary tramp ; 
for with the exception of perhaps two or three of them, these 
cave-dwellers possess absolutely nothing, and know no trade 
whatever. They sleep on dry leaves kept together by four 
pieces of wood, and their sole covering consists of scraps of 
packing cloth. Sometimes they have not even the frame- 
work for their beds, which they manufacture for the most 
part out of old broken chairs discarded from the churches. 
A visitor says : " In one of the caverns I entered there was 
but one of these squalid and rude beds to accommodate five 
persons, of whom one was a girl of seventeen, and two were 
boys of fourteen and fifteen. Their kitchen battery consists 
exclusively of old metal cases of preserved fruit or meats 
that they have picked up from the ashpits. The majority, but 
by no means all, have got hold, somehow, of some old stoves 
or the scraps of a stove that they have put together as best 
they could. They have a well in common at the bottom 
of the hill, whence they draw water in such utensils as they 
possess, and which they let down into the water on a wooden 

41 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

crook. Every one has his crook as his own property, and 
preserves it near him in the cavern. The majority of these 
underground people have no clothes to speak of. Girls 
of fifteen and big boys go about absolutely without any 
linen. The rest — perhaps three or four — have only a few 
linen rags upon them. In the stifling atmosphere- of 
these cave-dwellings it is by no means rare to see big 
children almost, if not absolutely, naked. I saw a great girl 
with a wild shock of uncombed hair, wearing nothing but 
a very scanty shift. 

"These cave-dwellers live with utter improvidence, 
although deprived of sufficient food. Three or four couples 
there have some four or five children to each. 

"These families have for the most part formed in the 
cave-dwellings. A young mother whom I saw there with 
four children, the only one dressed with an approach to 
decency, when interrogated by me told me that she had 
been brought there by her mother at the age of eight. 
That was twenty-four years ago. She was fair, with tawny 
hair, and of the Normandy type. She had been born in a 
village of the neighbourhood, and her mother took refuge 
in the caverns, apparently in consequence of the loss of her 
husband. 

"I heard of an individual who had been on the parish 
on account of his incurable laziness, till the mayor losing 
all patience with him, had him transported to these cave- 
dwellings and left there. There he settled down, picked up 
a wife, and had a family. 

"These people live quite outside the law, and are quit 
of all taxes and obligations. As to their marriages they 
are preceded and followed by no formalities. No attempt 
is made on the part of the authorities to get the children 
to school. One gentleman resident in the neighbourhood, 
a M. Frederic Passy, did take pains to ameliorate their 
condition. He collected the children and laboured to infuse 

42 



MODERN TROGLODYTES? 

into their hearts and heads some sort of moral principle. 
But his efforts were ineffectual, and left not a trace behind. 
They recollect him and his son well enough, but confuse the 
one with the other. And two of those who were under 
instruction for a while, when I questioned them about it, 
allowed that they had submitted to be bored by them for 
the sake of profiting by their charity. 

" I interrogated an old but still robust woman, who had 
lived in the caverns for three years. She had been consigned 
to them by her own children, who had sought by this means 
to rid themselves of the responsibility of maintaining her. 

"The elements of this population belong accordingly to 
all sorts. I noticed only one woman of an olive tint and 
with very black hair, who may have come from a distance. 
But I was told she was a recent accession to the colony, and 
I might be sure of this, as her clothing was still fairly sound 
and clean. As she is still young and can work, her case 
is curious; one wonders what can have induced her to go 
there. 

" I saw there also a couple without children ; the man 
had the slouch and hang-dog look of an habitual criminal. 

" I may give an instance which will show the degradation 
to which this population has fallen. An old beggar I 
visited, who has lived in a cavern belonging to his brother 
for forty-seven years, and who has had a wife, allowed a 
billiard ball to be rammed into his mouth for two sous 
(a penny) by some young fellows who were making sport of 
him. He was nearly killed by it, for they had the greatest 
difficulty in extracting the billiard ball." ^ 

At Duclair also, on the Seine, are rock dwellings pre- 
cisely like those on the Loire, and still inhabited. y 

Along the banks of the Loire from Tours to Saumur are 
numerous cave habitations still in occupation. Bell, in his 

^ Zaborowski, " Aux Caves d'Ezy," in Eevue Monsuelle de Vecole d'AntJiro- 
pologie, Paris, 1897, i. p. 27, et seq. 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

''Wayside Pictures," says of those at Saumur: "Close to 
the town are residences, literally sculptured in the face of 
the naked rock. They are cut in the stone, which is the 
tufa, or soft gravel stone, and easily admits of any workman- 
ship demanded by taste or necessity. There is no little 
care displayed in the formation of these strange habitations, 
some of which have scraps of gardens or miniature terraces 
before them ; hanging from the doorways are green creeping 
things, with other graceful adjuncts, which help to give 
a touch of beauty to their aspect. In some cases, where 
the shelving of the rock will admit of it, there are chimneys, 
in nearly all windows; and it not unfrequently happens, 
especially higher up the road near Tours, where art has 
condescended to embellish the facades still more elaborately, 
that these house-caves present an appearance of elegance 
which is almost impossible to reconcile with the absolute 
penury of their inhabitants. The interiors, too, although 
generally speaking naked enough, are sometimes tolerably 
well furnished, having an air of comfort in them which, 
certainly, no one could dream of discovering in such places. 
"These habitations are, of course, held only by the 
poor and outcast, yet, in spite of circumstances, they live 
merrily from hand to mouth how they can, and by means, 
perhaps, not always of the most legitimate description. I 
have a strong suspicion that the denizens of these rocks are 
not a whit better than they should be ; that their intimate 
neighbourhood is not the safest promenade after dark : and 
that, being regarded and treated as Pariahs, they are born 
and baptized in the resentments which are contingent upon 
such a condition of existence. You might as well attempt 
to chase an eagle to his eyrie among the clouds, as to make 
your way to some of these perilous chambers, which are cut 
in the blank face of the rock, and can be reached only by a 
sinuous track which requires the fibres of a goat to clamber. 
There are often long lines of these sculptured houses piled in 

44 




Pi 3 

1-1 ^ 

Si 



Pi ^ 

^ ," 

W .13 

43 

w *^ 

> V 

< c 
O '33 

1) 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

successive tiers above each other ; sometimes with a view to 
architectural regularity, but in almost all cases they are 
equally hazardous to the unpractised foot of a stranger. 

" Stroll down the spacious quay of Saumur in the dusk of 
the evening, when the flickering tapers of the temperate 
town are going out one by one. Roars of merriment greet 
you as you approach the cavernous city of the suburb. 
There the entertainments of the inhabitants are only about 
to begin. You see moving lights in the distance twinkling 
along the grey surface of the rock, and flitting amongst 
the trees that lie between its base and the margin of the 
river. Some bacchanalian orgie is going forward." ^ 

There was a curious statement made in a work by E. Bosc 
and L. Bonnemere in 1882,^ reproduced by M. Louis 
Bousrez in 1894,^ which, if true, would show that a lingering 
paganism is to be found among these people. It is to 
this effect : " What is unknown to most is that at the 
present day there exist adepts of the worship (of the Celts) 
as practised before the Roman invasion, with the sole 
exception of human sacrifices, which they have been forcibly 
obliged to renounce. They are to be 'found on the two 
banks of the Loire, on the confines of the departments 
of Allier and Saone-et-Loire, where they are still tolerably 
numerous, especially in the latter department. They are 
designated in the country as Les Blancs, because that in 
their ceremonies they cover their heads with a white hood, 
and their priests are vested like the Druids in a long robe 
of the same colour. 

" They surround their proceedings with profound mystery ; 
their gatherings take place at night in the heart of large 
forests, about an old oak, and as they are dispersed through 
the country over a great extent of land, they have to start 

1 Bell (R.), " Wayside Pictures," Lond. 1850, pp. 292-3. 

^ Hist, des Oaulois sous Vercingetorix. Paris, 1882. 

^ Les monuments Megalithiques de la Touraine. Tours, 1894. 

45 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

for the assembly from different points at close of day so 
as to be able to reach home again before daybreak. They 
have four meetings in the year, but one, the most solemn, 
is held near the town of La Clayette under the presidence of 
the high priest. Those who come from the greatest 
distance do not reach their homes till the second night, 
and their absence during the intervening day alone reveals 
to the neighbours that they have attended an assembly 
of the Whites. Their priests are known, and are vulgarly 
designated as the bishops or archbishops of the Whites ; 
they are actually druids and archdruids. . . . We have 
been able to verify these interesting facts brought to our 
notice by M. Parent, and our personal investigations into 
the matter enable us to affirm the exactitude of what has 
been advanced." 

If there be any truth in this strange story, we are much 
more disposed to consider the Whites as relics of a Mani- 
chaean or Albigensian sect than as a survival of Druidism. 
More probable still is it that they are or were a political 
confederation. But I suspect that the account is due to 
a heated imagination. 

At Bourre (Loir et Cher) are extensive quarries in the 
face of the hill. Here the chalk is hard and of beautiful 
texture. The stone has been derived hence for the erection 
of several of the castles in the Touraine, as also for buildings 
in the towns of Tours, Blois, Montrichard, &c. Most of 
the habitations of the villagers, who are nearly all quarry- 
men, are excavated in the rock, occupy old disused workings, 
or have been specially dug out to suit the convenience and 
dispositions of the occupants. In some of these old under- 
ground quarries, that are not open to the light of day, 
dances and revelries take place, when they are brilliantly 
illuminated. At Sainte Maure, on the road from Tours 
to Chatelherault, in a deep cleft of the Cande that is covered 
with t\iQfalun, an extensive deposit of marine and freshwater 

46 




Sauliac 



A village in the valley of the C616, Lot, built partly into the rocks, with chambers excavated out 

of the cliff. 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

shells, marking the beach of an old estuary of the sea, is 
the village of Courtineau, wholly made up of Troglodyte 
habitations, and with its chapel also excavated in the rock. 

At Villaines (Indre et Loire) the cliifs are pierced with 
caves that are inhabited by basket-makers, and the water- 
courses below are planted with willow, or else have cut 
osiers lying in them soaking to preserve their suppleness. 
In the caves, on the roads, in every house, one sees little else 
but baskets in process of making or cut osiers lying handy 
for use. The women split and peel the green rods, men and 
children with nimble fingers plait the white canes. All the 
basket-makers are themselves plaited into one co-operative 
association. From time immemorial Villaines had made 
baskets, the osier of the valley being of excellent quality. 
But the products could not be disposed of satisfactorily; 
they were bought by regraders, who beat down the prices of 
the wares, and the workmen had no means of seeking out 
the markets, in which to sell with full advantage to them- 
selves. In 1845 an old cure, whose name is remembered with 
affection, the Abbe Chicogne, conceived the idea of creating 
a co-operative society ; and aided by the Count de Villemois, 
he grouped the workers, and drew up the statutes of the 
Association, that remain in force to the present day. All 
the products are brought together into a common store, and 
sold for the benefit of the associates. No member is per- 
mitted to dispose of a single piece of his workmanship to 
a purchaser ; he may not sell in gross any more than he may 
in detail. The cave-houses are comfortably and neatly 
furnished, and their appearance and that of their inhabitants 
proclaims well-being, content and cheerfulness. 

On the Beune, a tributary of the Vezere, is the hamlet of 
Grioteaux, planted on a terrace in a cave, the rock over- 
hangs the houses. Above the cluster, inaccessible without 
a ladder, in the face of the cliff, is a chamber hewn out of 
the rock, and joist holes proclaiming that at one time a 

47 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

wooden gallery preceded it. This cavern, that is wholly 
artificial, served in times of trouble as a place in which 
the community concealed their valuables. 

The river Cele that flows into the Lot passes under noble 
cliffs of fawn and orange-tinted limestone, and the road here 
is called Le Defile des Anglais, as the whole valley during the 
Hundred Years' War was in the possession of the Companies 
that pretended to fight for the Leopards. And it was down 
this defile that the cutthroats rode on their plundering 
expeditions. In this valley is the village of Sauliac, in an 
amphitheatre of rocks, where road and river describe a semi- 
circle. The cliff runs up to a height of 300 feet. Houses 
are perched on every available ledge, grappling the rock, 
where not simply consisting of faced caverns. In the midst 
of this cirque stands the castle, buried in stately oaks. It 
was not built till 1460, when the long agony of the war 
was over, and nothing remained of the English save their 
empty nests in the rock, and their hated name. 

A modern chapel, very white and not congruous with its 
surroundings, is perched above the road on a terrace under 
Le Roc Perce, so named from a natural cavern, very 
round, drilled through it, as though wrought by a giant's 
boring tool. 

At Cuzorn, on the line from Perigueux to Agen, are very 
fine rocks in a meander of the Lemance, starting out of 
woods, and these contain caverns that have been, and some 
still are, inhabited. In this region are many quarries, not 
open to the sky, but forming halls and galleries under the 
hill, and some of these have been taken possession of and 
turned into habitations. 

At Brantome on the Dronne a good many of the houses 
are against the rock, the caves built up in front with the 
usual window and door to each. More have their work- 
shops in grottoes, in them blacksmiths have their forges, 
carpenters their planing benches, tinkers, tailors, cobblers 

48 







r- .''•*l''''''^^?P '' 




MODERN TROGLODYTES 

carry on their business in comparative obscurity. The 
superior stratum of rock is of so hard and tenacious a 
quality that it holds together with very few piers to support 
it. When a citizen wants to enlarge his premises, he merely 
digs deeper into the hill ; he has no ground-rent to pay. 
Some caves open a hundred feet wide without a support. 

Any one motoring or going by rail from Angouleme to 
Perigueux should halt half-way at La Roche Beaucourt, where 
the rock TArgentine contains a nest of cave-dwellings, with 
silos in the floors and cupboards in the walls. 

That the savage is not extinct in these out-of-the-way 
parts may be judged from this — that at Hautefaye near 
by, the peasants in 1870 laid hold of M. de Moneis, who 
objected to the prosecution of the war with the Prussians 
after Sedan, cruelly maltreated him, and threw him alive on 
a bonfire in which he expired among the flames* 

The whole south-east angle of the Isle of Sicily is full 
of underground cities, of which that of the Val d'Ispica is 
the most famous. These excavations are vulgarly called 
Ddieri, but they are not in most cases tombs, but dwelling- 
places for the living, as is shown by the handmills for oil 
and corn that are found in them. 

The Val dTspica is a narrow valley situated between 
Modica and Spaicaforno ; and throughout its entire length 
of about eight miles, the rock walls are pierced on both 
sides with countless grottoes, all artificial, and showing the 
marks of tools on their walls. They are scooped in the 
calcareous rock. Some consist of as many as ten or twelve 
chambers in succession, and are seldom more than 20 feet 
deep by 6 feet high, and they are of the same breadth. 
At the bottom of the valley flows a little stream that 
supplied the inhabitants wdth water, and irrigates wild fig- 
trees and pink-flowered oleanders. On a higher level grow 
broad-leaved acanthi and wild artichokes, and thick fes- 
toons of cactus hang down from the top of the rock and 

49 D 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

shade the entrances to the grottoes. A portion of the 
rock wall on the right bank of the stream has fallen, and 
exposed to sight the internal arrangement of the dwellings. 
But previous to this, ascent could only have been made by 
ladders or by notches in the rock for the insertion of toes 
and fingers, as among the cliff-dwellers in Arizona. There 
are ranges of these habitations on several stages, and steps 
cut in the rock allowed communication between them ; 
but above all is a ledge or gallery open to the sky and 
commanding a magnificent prospect. This could be reached 
only by a ladder, and probably formed the rendezvous of 
the women of the Troglodyte town in an evening to enjoy 
the cool air, and exercise their tongues. It may also have 
served as the last refuge of the inmates of the caverns, who, 
after escaping to it could withdraw the ladder. 

One dwelling of three storeys, with flights of steps in 
good preservation, is called the Castle by the peasants. 
Parthey, a German traveller, who investigated these dwel- 
lings, reckoned their number to be over 1500. He saw 
nowhere any trace of ornament about them. Doors and 
windows were mere rough holes cut through the limestone. 
Rings hewn in the stone which are found in the chambers 
probably served some purpose of domestic economy. Frag- 
ments of Samian ware and carved marble have been found 
in them, but are probably later than the construction of 
these habitations. Some contain graves, and these also 
may be later, but actually we know from history nothing 
about them. Rock tombs may have been utilised as dwel- 
lings or abandoned dwellings as tombs. To the present 
day some of them are still occupied, mainly by shepherds 
and poor peasants. The range in the Crimea from Cape 
Kersonese to the Bay of Ratla is formed of layers of lime- 
stone alternating with clay and argilaceous schist, a dis- 
position of the strata that tends greatly to accelerate the 
disintegration of the cliffs. The clay gradually washed out 

50 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

by springs or eaten away by the weather forms great caverns 
in the sides, and these are liable to fall in when deprived of 
support. They have, however, been utilised as habitations. 
The Rock of Inkermann, the ancient Celamita, runs east of 
the town beyond the marshy valley of the Chernaya ; it has 
been converted into a vast quarry which menaces with 
destruction the old Troglodyte town that occupied the 
cliffs. The galleries of this underground town form a 
rabbit warren in which it is dangerous to penetrate without 
a guide or a clue. Some of the chambers are large enough 
to contain five hundred people. 

The rocks of Djonfont-kaleharri are also honeycombed, 
with still inhabited caves; some are completely cavernous, 
but others have the openings walled up so as to form a 
screen. Beneath an overhanging rock is a domed church 
used by this Troglodyte community. 

If we cross the Mediterranean to Egypt, we see there 
whole villages of cave-dwellers. The district between 
Mansa-Sura and Cyrene is full of grottoes in the very heart 
of the mountains, into which whole families get by means 
of ropes, and many are born, live and die in these dens, 
without ever going out of them. 

The volcanic breccia as well as chalk and limestone has 
been utilised for the habitation of man. There is a very 
interesting collection of cave-dwellings all artificial, the 
Balmes du Montbrun, a volcanic crater of the Coiron, near 
S. Jean le Centenier in the Vivarais. The crater is 300 feet 
in diameter and 480 feet deep ; and man has burrowed into 
the sides of porous lava or pumice to form a series of 
habitations, a chapel, and one that is traditionally said to 
have served as a prison. This rock settlement was occu- 
pied till the close of the eighteenth century. 

The Grottoes de Boissiere are twelve in number, on the 
side of the Puy de Chateauneuf, commanding the road from 
Saint Nectaire to Marols, Puy de Dome. They are 

51 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

excavated in the volcanic tufa, and are all much of the same 
dimensions ; one, however, measures 28 feet by 12 feet, and 
is 7 feet high. Below the grottoes the slope of the hill is 
parcelled out into small fields or gardens by means of walls 
of stones laid one on another without mortar, showing that 
the inhabitants of these caves lived there permanently 
and cultivated the ground below their dwellings.^ More 
curious still are the Grottoes de Jonas on the Couze, also in 
Puy de Dome, near Cheix. They are in stages one range 
above another to the height of from 90 to 120 feet. The 
face of the mountain is precipitous, and is of a porous tufa 
full of holes. As many as sixty of these artificial caves 
remain ; but there were at one time many more, that have 
been destroyed by the fall of the very friable volcanic rock. 
It is impossible to determine the period at which these caves 
were excavated ; they were probably prehistoric to begin 
with, but were tenanted during the Middle Ages when — if 
not later — the tracks leading to them were cut in the tufa 
and stairs to connect the several stages. Then paths were 
bordered by walls as a protection, and fragments of the 
parapet remain. Probably it was during the English occupa- 
tion of Guienne which extended into Auvergne, that a 
castle and a chapel were sculptured out of the living rock. 
At the same time a remarkable spiral staircase was con- 
trived in like manner. Numerous relics of all periods — flint 
tools, bronze weapons, statuettes, and coins — have been found 
among the rubbish thrown out from these dens.^ 

On the Borne, in Haute Loire, dug out of the volcanic 
rock are several cave-dwellings. The caves at Conteaux are 
fourteen in number, the largest is divided into three com- 

^ There are others, Les Grottes de Kajah, in the same mass of rock, with 
near them an isolated rock carved about and supposed to have been 
an idol. 

* G. Tournier, Les Megalithes et les Qrottes des environs de S. Nectaire. 
Paris, 1910. 

52 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

partments; each is 45 feet deep and 11 feet wide, but the 
usual dimension is from 28 to 36 feet. In all, the vault is 
rather over 6 feet high. An opening in the roof of one gave 
vent to smoke. 

The rock of Ceyssac is curious. Formerly a barrier of 
volcanic tufa stretched across the valley of the Borne ; this 
barrier had been ejected from the volcano; of La Denise. 
The river, arrested in its onward course, was ponded back 
and formed a lake that overflowed the dam in two places, 
leaving between them a fang of harder rock. When the 
water had spilled for a considerable time over the left-hand 
lip, and had worn this down to a depth of about 70 feet, it 
all at once abandoned this mode of outlet and concentrated 
its efforts on the right-hand portion of the dam where it 
found the tufa less compact. It eventually sawed its way 
completely through till it reached its present >level, leaving 
the prong of rock in the middle rising precipitously out of 
the valley with the river gliding peacefully below it, but 
attached to the mountain side by the neck it had abandoned. 
The fang was laid hold of, burrowed into, and converted 
into a village of Troglodytes. In it are cave- dwellings in 
five superposed storeys, stables with their mangers, with 
rings for tying up cattle, a vast hall, that is circular, and 
chambers with lockers and seats graven out of the sides of 
the walls. There is also a subterranean chapel, with the 
entrance blocked by a wall that contains an early Roman- 
esque doorway. The Polignacs seized on the spike of rock 
and built on the summit a castle that could be reached only 
by a flight of steps cut in the face of the rock. By degrees 
the inhabitants have migrated from their caves to the neck 
of land connecting the prong with the hill, and have built 
themselves houses thereon. They have even abandoned 
their monolithic church and erected in its place an unsightly 
modern building. 

There are other cave-dwellings in the volcanic rocks of 

53 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

the Cevennes and Auvergne, but the above account must 
suffice. 

I will now say something abput the Troglodyte dwellings 
in the sandstone in Correze, in the neighbourhood of Brive, 
caves that have been inhabited from the time of the man 
who was contemporary with the mammoth, to this day. 
Some have, however, been abandoned comparatively recently. 

They do not run deep into the rock; usually they face 
the south or south-west, and are sometimes in a series at 
the same level ; sometimes they form several storeys, which 
communicated with each other by ladders that passed 
through holes cut in the floor of the upper storey, or 
else by a narrow cornice, wide enough for one to walk on. 
Sometimes this cornice has been abraded by the weather, 
and fallen away; in which case these cave-dwellings can 
be reached only by a ladder. There are caves in which 
notches cut in the rock show where beams had been inserted, 
and struts to maintain them, so as to form a wooden 
balcony for communication between the chambers, or between 
the dwellings of neighbours. 

The doorways into these habitations are usually cut so 
as to admit a wooden frame to which a door might be 
attached ; and there are deep holes bored in the rock, very 
much as in our old churches and towers, for the cross-piece 
of timber that effectually fastened the door. 

The grottoes are cut square, the ceilings are always 
sensibly horizontal, and the walls always vertical. But 
where a natural hollow has been artificially deepened, there 
the opening is usually irregular. Moreover, in such case, 
the gaping mouth of the cave was in part walled up. The 
traces of the tool employed are everywhere observable, they 
indicate that the rock was cut by a pick having a triangular 
point. Small square holes in the sides, and long horizontal 
grooves indicate the position of shelves. Square hollows of 
considerable size served as cupboards, and oblong rectangular 

54 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

recesses, 18 inches above the floor, and from 3 feet 9 inches 
to 4 feet 6 inches high and a foot deep were benches. 
Bedplaces were also cut in the rock. 

There are also indications of a floor having been carried 
across in some of the loftier caves, and there are openings 
in the roofs through which ascent was made to the series 
of chambers on the upper storey. Holes pierced in the 
ceiling served for the suspension of articles liable to be 




Sketch Plan of Eock Stable, Commarques. 

injured by proximity to a damp rock. A string was attached 
to the middle of a short stick, that was thrust into the 
hole. The string was then pulled and it was fast. Another 
plan was that of boring holes at an angle into the rock at 
the side. Into these holes rods were thrust and what was 
required to be kept dry was suspended from them. 

Some of the grottoes served at once for man and beast 
and fowl. Not only are there chambers for the former, but 
also mangers for cattle, and silos to contain the fodder ; 
and there are nooks for pigeons in an adjoining cave. In 
many cases there are cisterns ;'^in one is a well. The cisterns 
had to be filled laboriously. They are provided with bung- 

55 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

holes for the purpose of occasional cleaning out. The walls 
are scored with concave grooves slanting downwards, 
uniting and leading into small basins. The moisture con- 
densing on the sides trickled into these runnels and supplied 
the basins with drinking water. The mangers have holes 
bored in the stone through which passed the halters. There 
are indications that the cattle were hauled up by means of 
a windlass. 

That these were not places of refuge in times of danger, 
but were permanent habitations, would appear from the 
fact that those of Lamouroux contain mural paintings, and 
that in them, in addition to stables, there is a pigeonry. 
In one or two instances the piers that support the roof have 
sculptured capitals, of the twelfth or thirteenth century. 
In the cave-dwelling still tenanted at Siourat is cut the 
date, i.D. 1585, surmounted by a cross.i 

I have given the plan of the caves of Lamouroux in my 
" Deserts of Southern France." 

How general rock habitations were at one time in Perigord 
may be judged by the prevalence of the place-name Cluseau, 
which always meant a cave that was dwelt in, with the 
opening walled up, window and door inserted ; roffi is 
applied to any ordinary grotto, whether inhabited or not. 

It would be quite impossible for me to give a list of the 
cave-dwellings in France still inhabited, or occupied till 
comparatively recent times, they are so numerous and are to 
be found in every department where is the chalk or the lime- 
stone, sandstone or volcanic tufa. 

They are to be met with not only in those parts of 
France from which the above specimens have been taken and 
described, but also in Var, Bouches du Rhone, Aveyron, 
Gard, Lozere, Cantal, Charente, Vienne, &c. 

There is a good deal of sameness in the appearance of 

^ Lalande (Ph.), Les Orottes artificiellcs des environs de Brive. In MCmoires 
de la Soc. de Spelioloyic. Paris, 1897. 

56 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 




MODERN TROGLODYTES 

those still inhabited — a walled face, a mask, with window 
and door, and above a chimney of brick rising out of the 
rock. 

In England, Nottingham drew its ancient British name of 
Tigguocobauc (House of Caves) from its troglodyte habita- 
tions; at Mansfield in that county such caves exist, and 
were associated with a class of inhabitants somewhat nomadic, 
who obtained their living by making besoms from the 
heather of the adjoining forest and moorland. They estab- 
lished a colony on the roadside waste, and sank wells in 
the rock for water. Nottingham enjoyed possibly the 
largest brewing and malting business in the country, and 
those trades were nearly wholly carried on in chambers and 
cellars and kilns cut out of the living rock. Mr. W. Steven- 
son, author of ''Bygone Nottinghamshire,"" writes to me: 
" Last week I was with an antiquarian friend exploring an 
ancient passage in the castle rock, originally made as a sally- 
port to the castle, but at some later period when bricks came 
on the scene, converted or enlarged into a set of malt offices 
with malt kilns complete. Their original use and locality 
have been lost for a century, and their recovery is just being 
brought about. Their situation, high over the adjoining 
meadow, and their presence in the very heart of the rock 
that rises abrupt to the height of 133 feet is truly romantic. 
The foot of the range of cliffs, with a south aspect, was a 
favoured site. Here we find communities of monks dwelling 
for centuries, hermits spotted about, and a great part of the 
town-dwellers, tanners, dyers, and other trades where water 
was largely required. A peculiarity of these houses was 
their fresh-water supply. The denizens sank holes in their 
living apartments with steps cut in the rock until they got 
down to the water level, where they had little pools of fresh 
water. The system was known as Scoop-wells, and must 
have been very ancient. Those who lived on higher levels 
burrowed into the sides of sunken roads, and the track-lines 

58 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

of ancient military defences. In deeds of transfer of property 
it was customary to describe tenements as below or above 
ground. Old writers have said that they doubted if the 
erections above ground would fill the space excavated below 
ground ; and to-day, when erecting new buildings, it is 
necessary to drill down into the rock a yard or more to 
ascertain that the foundations are not to be laid above the 
crowns of hidden vaults, chapels, or unknown habitations.'"' 

Thoroton, in his history of Nottinghamshire, 1797, gives 
an illustration of rock-dwellings at Sneynton, adjoining 
Nottingham, but they have recently been cleared away for 
railway extension. 

The sanitary authorities have done their best to sweep 
the tenants out of the Nottingham cave habitations, but in 
Staffordshire at Kinver there are still troglodytes. 

Holy Austin's Rock is a mass of red sandstone, a spur of 
the bluff of Kinver Edge, that is crowned by the earthworks 
of what is supposed to have been a camp of Penda. But 
it has been broken through by wind and rain and perhaps 
sea, and now stands out unattached. It is honeycombed 
with habitations. I have been into several. They are 
neat and dry, and the occupants are loud in praise of them, 
as warm in winter and cool in summer. They are in two 
stages. At Drakelow also there are several, also occupied, 
somewhat disfigured by hideous chimneys recently erected 
in yellow and red bricks. One chimney is peculiarly quaint 
as being twisted, like a writhing worm, to accommodate itself 
to the shape of the overhanging rock. Another series of 
these habitations is now abandoned, but was occupied till 
a comparatively recent period, and other houses have their 
stables and storerooms excavated out of the rock. 

Although Derbyshire abounds with caverns, some natural, 
some the work of miners, from Roman times, they do not 
appear to have been inhabited, at least since prehistoric 
times, except as occasional refuges. 

59 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

But there is a rock hermitage at Dale Abbey that has 
been lived in till recently, and when Mr. St. John Hope 
was excavating the Abbey ruins, one of his workmen in- 
formed him that he had been born and bred in it. 

A writer in The Cornish Magazine gives the following 
account of some Cornish cave-dwellers. 

" People in the habit of frequenting the shore of Whit- 
sand Bay, between Lore and Dowderry, are familiar with the 
sight of a couple of women moving about among the rocks 
exposed at low tide. They are shell-fish gatherers, who live 
in a small cave a little to the west of Seaton. The illustra- 
tion shows almost the extent of this cleft in the shady cliff, 
and any one who examines the place must wonder how two 
human beings can exist there. Along one side is a strip 
of sand, and from that the floor slopes upwards at an angle 
of about sixty degrees. Whether by years of practice the 
women have attained such perfection in the art of balancing 
their bodies that they go to sleep on the slanting rock 
without fear of falling, or whether they rest on the sand 
(wet when I saw it from a late storm), I was not informed ; 
but it is evident that they know no comfort at any time. 
When I came suddenly upon the cave one morning in 
October, the smouldering ashes of a drift-wood fire, a kettle, 
a teapot, and two cups were dotted about just inside. 
Further up the floor their ' cupboards ' — a couple of iron 
boilers — were standing, and in a niche near the fire was a 
pipe — short, dark, and odorous. The women who have 
made this their dwelling are Irish widows, 'born in Ireland 
and married in Ireland,' as one of them said. They are 
between fifty and sixty years of age, and for the last thirty 
years have managed to gain a subsistence by gathering 
limpets week after week and taking them to Plymouth. 
When the sea is rough they obtain few or no fish, but under 
favourable circumstances the two sometimes get fourteen 
shillings a week between them. In fine weather, when from 

60 




Drakelow in Kinver, Shropshire 







Aubeterre 

One of the subterranean excavations at Aubeterre on the Dronne, 
serving as stables, storehouses, etc. At the side on the right may be seen 
an oven for bread, scooped out of the rock. 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

Rame Head to Looe Island the sea lies calm and glistening 
under a summer sky, this smoke-blackened cave is an unin- 
viting hovel ; and in the winter, especially when there is 
a gale from the south-east, the women must be almost 
blown out of the hollow or frozen to death. On such 
occasions they are forced to leave the cave, and then they 
go to a disused pigsty near by. In talking with them 
while they dexterously chipped limpets from the weed- 
mantled rocks, I mildly remarked that workhouses were 
now very comfortable. Immediately the younger woman 
stood erect, and with something akin to pride and determi- 
nation, exclaimed in a voice more than tinctured by the 
Irish patois, ' Never, sir, will us go to the workhouse while 
us can get as much as an crust in twenty-four hours." 
Hitherto I had seen her only in a stooping attitude, and 
I was surprised to see how tall a woman she was, and what 
strength of character was indicated by her features. As 
she stood there amongst the sea-weed, with feet and legs 
bare, and her hair confined by a handkerchief, beating the 
palm of one hand with the knuckles of the other to 
emphasise her words, it dawned upon me that I had named 
the thing against which these two women had fought grimly 
for more than a quarter of a century." ^ 

Sir Arthur Mitchell describes some troglodytes in Scot- 
land.^ " In August 1866, along with two friends, I visited 
the great cave at the south side of Wick Bay. It was nine 
at night, and getting dark when we reached it. It is 
situated in a cliff, and its mouth is close to the sea. Very 
high tides, especially with north-east winds, reach the 
entrance and force the occupants to seek safety in the back 
part of the cave, which is at a somewhat higher level than 
its mouth. 

"We found twenty-four inmates — men, women, and 

^ The Cornish Magazine, i. (1878), pp. 394-5. 

2 " The Past in the Present," Edin. 1880, pp. 73-7. 

61 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

children — belonging to four families, the heads of which 
were all there. They had retired to rest for the night a 
short time before our arrival, but their fires were still 
smouldering. They received us civilly, perhaps with more 
than mere civility, after a judicious distribution of pence 
and tobacco. To our great relief, the dogs, which were 
numerous and vicious, seemed to understand that we were 
welcome. 

"The beds on which we found these people lying con- 
sisted of straw, grass and bracken, spread upon the rock or 
shingle, and each was supplied with one or two dirty, 
ragged blankets or pieces of matting. Two of the beds 
were near the peat-fires, which were still burning, but the 
others were further back in the cave where they were better 
sheltered. 

" On the^ bed nearest the entrance lay a man and his 
wife, both absolutely naked, and two little children in the 
same state. On the next bed lay another couple, an infant, 
and one or two elder children. Then came a bed with 
a bundle of children, whom I did not count. A youngish 
man and his wife, not quite naked, and some children, 
occupied the fourth bed, while the fifth from the mouth of 
the cave was in possession of the remaining couple and two 
of their children, one of whom was on the spot of its birth. 
Far back in the cave — upstairs in the garret, as they 
facetiously called it — were three or four biggish boys, who 
were undressed, but had not lain down. One of them, 
moving about with a flickering light in his hand, contributed 
greatly to the weirdness of the scene. Beside the child 
spoken of, we were told of another birth in the cave, and 
we heard also of a recent death there, that of a little child 
from typhus. The Procurator-Fiscal saw this dead child 
lying naked on a large flat stone. Its father lay beside it 
in the delirium of typhus, when death paid this visit to an 
abode with no door to knock at. 

62 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

" Both men and women, naked to their waists, sat up in 
their lairs and talked to us, and showed no sense of shame. 
One of the men summoned the candle-boy from the garret, 
in order that we might see better, and his wife trimmed 
the dying fire, and then, after lighting her pipe, proceeded 
to suckle her child. 

" In the afternoon of the next day, with another friend, 
I paid a second visit to this cave, when we found eighteen 
inmates, most of whom were at an early supper, consisting 
of porridge and treacle, apparently well cooked and clean. 
One of the women was busy baking. She mixed the oat- 
meal and water in a tin dish, spread the cake out on a flat 
stone which served her for a table, and placing the cake 
against another stone, toasted it at the open fire of turf and 
wood. This was one of three fires, all situated about the 
centre of the wider part or mouth of the cave, each with a 
group about it of women and ragged children. 

" There was no table, or chair, or stool to be seen, stones 
being so arranged as to serve all these purposes. There 
was no sort of building about the entrance of the cave to 
give shelter from the winds, which must often blow fiercely 
into it. Yet this cave is occupied both in summer and 
winter by a varying number of families, one or two of them 
being almost constant tenants. 

" I believe I am correct in saying that there is no parallel 
illustration of modern cave life in Scotland. The nearest 
approach to it, perhaps, is the cave on the opposite or 
north side of the same bay. Both of these caves I have 
had frequent opportunities of visiting, and I have always 
found them peopled. Only occasional use is made of the 
other caves on the Caithness and Sutherland coasts. Of 
these, perhaps the cave of Ham, in Dunnet parish, is 
the most frequented. It is the nearness to a large town 
which gives to the Wick caves their steady tenants. 
The neighbouring population is large enough to afford 

63 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

room for trading, begging, and stealing — all the year 
round. 

"The occupants of the Wick caves are the people 
commonly known by the name of Tinkers. They are so 
called chiefly because they work in tinned iron. The men 
cut, shape, hammer, while the women do the soldering. 

"The Tinkers of the Wick caves are a mixed breed. 
There is no Gipsy blood in them. Some of them claim 
a West Island origin. Others say they are true Caithness 
men, and others again look for their ancestors among 
the Southern Scotch. They were not strongly built, nor 
had they a look of vigorous bodily health. Their heads 
and faces were usually bad in form. Broken noses and 
scars were a common disfigurement, and a revelation at 
the same time of the brutality of their lives. One girl 
might have been painted for a rustic beauty of the Norse 
type, and there was a boy among them with an excellent 
head. It is possible that one or both of these may yet 
leave their parents, from dissatisfaction with the life 
they lead." 

These cave-dwellers of Wick were the offscourings of 
society, such as might be found in any town slum. " Virtue 
and chastity exist feebly among them, and honour and 
truth more feebly still ; they neither read nor write ; they 
go to no church, and have scarcely any sort of religious 
belief or worship. They know little or nothing of their 
history beyond what can be referred to personal recollection." 

These, like the slum dwellers of a town, are recruited 
from outside, they do not constitute a race ; they are the 
dregs of a race — persons who have dropped out of the line 
of march. 

An amusing story was told by Mr. Grant Allen. A 
missionary society had captured, converted, and educated 
a black man. He was such a promising pupil, and looked 
so respectable in black clothes and a white tie, that he 

64 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

was advanced to the ministry, and in due course consecrated 
bishop, and sent out shovel-hat, lawn sleeves, rochet, and 
all complete, to the Gold Coast, to found a church there 
among the natives. 

Now Bishop Black got on for a little while decorously; 
but one day the old wild blood in him boiled up — away 
went shovel-hat and boots, he peeled off his gaiters and 
knee-breeches, tore his lawn sleeves to rags, and dashed 
off a howling savage, stark naked, to take to himself a 
dozen wives, and to go head-hunting. What was born 
in the bone would come out in the flesh. 

Probably there is an underlying vein of the savage 
in all of us, but it is kept in control by the restraints 
of habit accumulated through generations of civilisation. 
Yet there it is. A quiet, well-conducted dog will some- 
times disappear for a few days and nights. It has gone 
off on a spree, to poach on its own account. Then, when it 
has had its fling, it returns, and is meek, docile, and orderly 
as before. 

There is something of this in man. He becomes im- 
patient of the trammels of ordinary life, its routine and 
matter-of-fact, and a hunger comes over him for a complete 
change, to shake off the bonds of conventionality, escape 
the drudgery of work, and live a free, wild life. Among 
many this takes the form of going to the Colonies or 
to Wild Africa or Western Canada, to shoot game, to 
camp out, and be a savage for a while. Among the artisan 
class it takes another form — the great army of tramps 
is recruited thus. The struggle to maintain a family, 
the dry uninteresting toil, drives the man into a fit of 
impatience, and he leaves his work, his wife and bairns, 
and becomes a wanderer ; idle, moving on from place to 
place, never starving, never very comfortable— in dirt and 
idleness, and often in drink — but with no ties, and going 
here, there, and everywhere as he lists. 

65 E 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

Not many years ago there was a man who lived by 
the DeviFs Dyke, on the South Downs of Sussex, in a 
shelter under a hedge, picking up coppers from visitors 
to the Dyke, dressed like Ally Sloper, but living in a 
manner more squalid and under a worse shelter than would 
be endured by most savages in the darkest parts of Africa. 
What his history was no one knew. 

It is now somewhat longer since a medical man, in an 
excess of impatience against civilisation, constructed for 
himself a hovel out of hurdles thatched with reeds, in South 
Devon. He lived in it, solitary, speaking to no one. 
Occasionally he bought a sheep and killed it, and ate it 
as the appetite prompted, and before it was done the 
meat had become putrid. At length the police interfered, 
the stench became intolerable in the neighbourhood, as 
the hovel was by the roadside. The doctor was ordered 
to remove, and he went no one seems to know whither. 

In Charles the First's time there were men living in the 
caves and dens of the ravines about Lydford in South Devon. 
They had a king over them named Richard Rowle, and they 
went by the name of the Gubbins. William Browne, a poet 
of the time, wrote in 1644 : — 

" The town's enclosed with desert moors. 
But where no bear nor lion roars. 

And naught can live but hogs ; 
For all o'erturned by Noah's flood, 
Of fourscore miles scarce one foot's good. 

And hills are wholly bogs. 

And near hereto's the Gubbins' cave ; 
A people that no knowledge have 

Of law, of God, or men ; 
Whom Caesar never yet subdued. 
Who've lawless liv'd ; of manners rude ; 

All savage in their den. 
6Q 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

By whom, if any pass that way, 
He dares not the least time to stay. 

For presently they howl ; 
Upon which signal they do muster 
Their naked forces in a cluster 

Led forth by Roger Rowle." 

I extract the following from the Daily Express of May 
10, 1910 :~ 

" It was stated at an inquest held on Richard Manford 
at Market Drayton yesterday, that he was over eighty 
years of age, and had for the greater part of his life dwelt 
in a cave near Hawkstone. He was found dying by the 
roadside." 

Elsewhere ^ I have given an account of the North Devon 
savages, to whom Mr. Greenwood first drew attention. Till 
a very few years ago there lived on the Cornish moors 
a quarryman — he may be living still for aught I have heard 
to the contrary — in a solitary hut piled up of granite. He 
would allow no one to approach, threatening visitors with 
a gun. His old mother lived with him. By some means 
the rumour got about that she was dead, but as the man 
said nothing, it was not till this rumour became persistent 
that the authorities took cognisance of it, and visited the 
hovel. They found that the old woman's bed had been 
a hole scooped out of the bank that formed part of the 
wall ; that she had been dead some considerable time, and 
that her face was eaten away by rats. Daniel Gumb was a 
stone-cutter who lived near the Cheese Wring on the Cornish 
moors in the eighteenth century. He inhabited a cave com- 
posed of masses of granite. It is an artificial cell about 
twelve feet deep and not quite that breadth. The roof 
consists of one flat stone of many tons weight. On the 
right hand of the entrance is cut " D. Gumb," with a date 

1 "An Old English Home," Methuen, 1898. 

67 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

1733 (or 5). On the upper part of the covering stone 
channels are cut to carry off the rain. Here he dwelt for 
several years with his wife and children, several of whom 
were born and died there. 

How instinctively the man of the present day will revert to 
primitive usages and to the ground as his natural refuge may 
be illustrated by a couple of instances. Mr. Hamerton, 
in "A Painter's Camp," says that near Sens on a height 
is a little pleasure-house and the remnant of a forgotten 
chapel dedicated to S. Bondus. This belonged of late years 
to a gentleman of Sens who was passionately attached to 
the spot. "Near my tent there is a hole in the chalk 
leading to the very bowels of the earth. A long passage, 
connecting cells far apart, winds till it arrives under the 
house, and it is said that the late owner intended to cut 
other passages and cells, but wherefore no man knows. One 
thing is certain, he loved the place, and spent money there 
for the love of it. Night and day he came up here from 
his little city on the plain, sat in his pleasant octagon room, 
and descended into his winding subterranean passages, and 
hermit-like visited the hollow cells." On his death he 
bequeathed it to the Archbishop of Sens.^ 

Another instance is from our own country. Mr. L. P. 
Jacks'* very remarkable book, "Mad Shepherds," gives an 
account of one Toller of Chin Downs, who went deranged, 
took to the moors and lived for a considerable time, stealing 
sheep and poultry. "Beyond the furthest outpost of the 
Perryman farm lie extensive wolds rising rapidly into 
desolate regions where sheep can scarcely find pasture. In 
this region Toller concealed himself. About two miles 
beyond the old quarry, on a slaty hillside, he found a deep 
pit ; and here he built himself a hut. He made the walls 
out of stones of a ruined sheepfold ; he roofed them with 
a sheet of corrugated iron, stolen from the outbuildings of 
1 " A Painter's Camp," Lond. 1862, Bk. iii. c. 1. 

68 



MODERN TROGLODYTES 

a neighbouring farm, and covered the iron with sods ; he 
built a fireplace with a flue, but no chimney ; he caused 
water from a spring to flow into a hollow beside the door. 
Then he collected slates, loose stones and casks; and by 
heaping these against the walls of the hut, he gave the 
whole structure the appearance of a mound of rubbish. 
Human eyes rarely came within sight of the spot ; but even 
a keen observer of casual objects would not have suspected 
that the mound represented any sort of human dwelling. 
It was a masterpiece of protective imitation. . . . His 
implements were all of flint, neatly bound in their handles 
with strips of hide. There was an axe for slaughter, a 
dagger for cutting meat, a hammer for breaking bones, 
a saw and scrapers of various size — the plunder of some 
barrow on Clun Downs." There Toller lived for several 
months, and there he died, his hiding-place being known 
to one other shepherd, and to him alone; and there after 
his death he was buried. " My 'usband dug his grave wi' 
his own hands," said the widow of this shepherd, "close 
beside the hut, and buried him next day. He put the 
axe and slings just as he told him, wi' the stones and all 
the bits of flint things as he found 'em in the hut." ^ 

1 "Mad Shepherds, and other Human Studies," Lond. 1910, p. 137 
et seq. 



69 



CHAPTER III 

SOUTERRAINS 

IN the year 1866 the Prussian Army of the Elbe broke 
into Bohemia, when it was found that the inhabitants 
of a certain district had vanished along with their cattle 
and goods, leaving behind empty houses and stables. It had 
been the same during the Thirty Years' War, and again in 
the Seven Years' War, when the invaders found not a living 
soul, and contented themselves with destroying the crops 
and burning the villages and farms. Even the Government 
officials had disappeared. Whither had they gone ? Into the 
rock labyrinths of Adersbach and Wickelsdorf, each accessible 
only through a single gap closed by a door. The mountain 
of what the Germans call Quadersandstein is four miles long 
by two broad, and was at one time an elevated plateau, but 
is now torn into gullies, forming a tangled skein of ravines, 
wherein a visitor without a guide might easily lose himself. 
The existence of this labyrinth was unknown save to the 
peasants till the year 1824, when a forest fire revealed it, 
but for some time it remained unexplored.^ 

As Adersbach and Wickelsdorf lie on the frontier of 
Bohemia and Silesia, the existence of this region of cliffs 
and natural refuges had been kept secret by the natives, 
who looked upon it as a secure hiding-place for themselves 
and their chattels when the storm of war swept over the 
Riesen Gebirge. But the fatal fire of 1824 betrayed their 
secret to the world, and after a little hesitation, thinking to 

^ It had indeed been mentioned by Dr. Kausch in his Nachrichten iiber 
Bohmen, 1794 ; but he lamented its inaccessibility. 

70 



SOUTERRAINS 

make profit out of it as a show-place, paths were cut 
through it, and it was advertised in 1847. When, in 1866, 
the Prussians passed by, they incurred neither the risk nor 
the trouble of hunting out the refugees from their place of 
concealment. 

The rocks run up to 200 feet, the loftiest being 280 
feet. They assume the most fantastic shapes. The passage 
through the fissures is so narrow that in some places it can 
be threaded by one man alone at a time, the others following 
in single file. A rivulet, clear as crystal, traverses the net- 
work of gullies, and in one place forms a tiny cascade. 
One nook is called the Southern Siberia, because in it the 
snow lies unmelted throughout the summer. 

At intervals the rocks fall back and form open spaces, 
and at one describe an amphitheatre upon a vista of rolling 
forest. 

But if this " petrified forest,"" as it has been called, served 
as a refuge for the peasants in troublous times, it has also 
been employed by brigands as their fastness whence to 
ravage the country and render the roads perilous. But of 
their exploits I shall have more to say in the chapter on 
robber-dens. 

Caverns, as well as chasms, have always served this same 
purpose. 

There is something remarkably human and significant 
in the prophecy of Isaiah relative to the coming of the 
Judge of all the earth: "They shall go into the holes of 
the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the 
Lord, and for the glory of his majesty." And in the 
Book of Revelation : " And the kings of the earth, and 
the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, 
and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free 
man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the 
mountains.'' 

As the first men found their refuges and homes in caves 

71 



SOUTERRAINS 

and rock shelters, so the last men, with the instinct im- 
planted in them from the first and never eradicated, will fly 
to the earth as a hiding-place, just as a frightened child 
flies to the lap of its mother. 

When Ahab persecuted the prophets, Obadiah hid them 
by fifties in a cave. After the battle of Bethhoron the 
five kings of the Amorites hid themselves in the cave of 
Makkedah. When the Midianites oppressed Israel, the 
latter "made them the dens which are in the mountains, 
and caves and strongholds.'** From the Philistines "the 
people did hide themselves in caves and in thickets and in 
high places, and in pits."" Twice did Elijah take refuge in 
a cave. 

What took place in Palestine, took place in every part 
of the world wherever there are limestone and chalk and 
volcanic breccia and sandstone. It would seem as though 
a merciful Providence had not only provided the first 
shelters for man against the inclemency of the weather, 
but had also furnished him with places of secure refuge 
against the violence of his fellow-man. As sure as the 
rabbit runs to its hole on the sight of the sportsman, so 
did the oppressed and timorous when the slayer and the 
marauder appeared. 

In the South of France, where caves abound, the unhappy 
Gauls fled from Caesar and concealed themselves in them. 
He bade his lieutenant Crassus wall up the entrances. 
When the Armenians fled before Corbulo — "fuere qui 
se speluncis et carissima secum abderenf"' — he filled the 
mouths of the caverns with faggots and burned them out.^ 

When Civilis rose in insurrection against Vespasian, he 
was joined by a young native, Julius Sabinus from Langres, 
who boasted that, in the great war with the Gauls, his 
great-grandmother had taken the fancy of Julius Caesar, 
and that to him he owed his name. 

* Tacit., " Annals," xvi. 23. 

72 



SOUTERRAINS 

After the death of Nero, the Druids had come forth from 
the retreats where they had remained concealed since their 
proscription by Claudius, and proclaimed that " the Roman 
Empire was at an end, and that the Gallic Empire was come 
to its birth/' Insurgents rose on every side, and Julius 
Sabinus assumed the title of Caesar. War broke out ; con- 
fusion, hesitation, and actual desertion extended through the 
Colonies, and reached the legions. Several towns submitted 
to the insurgents. Some legions yielding to persuasion, 
bribery, or discontent, killed their officers and went over to 
the rebels. The gravity of the situation was perceived in 
Rome, and Petilius Cerealis was despatched to crush the 
revolt. The struggle that ensued was fierce but brief, and 
Civilis was constrained to surrender. Vespasian being dis- 
inclined to drive men or matters to an extremity, pardoned 
him ; but no mercy was to be extended to Julius Sabinus. 
After the ruin of his cause, Sabinus took refuge underground 
in one of those retreats excavated in the chalk beneath his 
villa, and two of his freedmen were alone privy to the secret. 
The further to conceal him, they set fire to his house, and 
gave out that he had poisoned himself and that his dead 
body had been consumed in the flames. His young wife, 
named Eponia, was in frantic despair at the news ; but one 
of the freedmen informed her of the place of his retreat, 
and advised her to assume the habit and exhibit the desola- 
tion of widowhood, so as to confirm the report they had 
disseminated. " Well did she play her part," says Plutarch, 
" in this tragedy of woe."" She visited her husband in his 
cave at night, and left him at daybreak, but at last refused 
to leave him at all. At the end of seven months, hearing 
talk of the clemency of Vespasian, she set out for Rome 
taking her husband with her, disguised as a slave, with 
shaven head and a dress that rendered him unrecognisable. 
But friends who were in her confidence dissuaded her from 
prosecuting the journey. The imperial clemency was not 

73 



SOUTERRAINS 

a quality to be calculated upon with confidence. They 
accordingly returned to their subterranean abode. There 
they lived for nine years, during which, " as a lioness in 
her den," says Plutarch, " Eponia gave birth to two young 
whelps, and suckled them at her own breast." At length 
they were discovered, and Sabinus and his wife were brought 
before Vespasian. 

" Csesar," said Eponia, showing him her children, " I con- 
ceived and suckled them in a tomb, that there might be 
more of us to entreat thy mercy." But the Emperor was 
not disposed to be clement to one who pretended to inherit 
the sacred Julian blood, and he ordered Sabinus to be led 
to the block. Eponia asked that she might die with her 
husband, saying : " Caesar, do me this grace, for I have 
lived more happily underground and in darkness than thou 
hast done in the splendour of thy palace." 

Vespasian fulfilled her desire by sending her also to 
execution ; and Plutarch, their contemporary, expressed 
the general feeling in' Rome, when he adds : " In all the 
long reign of this Emperor there was no deed done so cruel, 
and so piteous to look upon ; and he was afterwards 
punished for it, for in a brief time all his posterity was 
cut off." 

In 731 the Saracens, masters of the peninsula, poured 
over the Pyrenees, and entered the Septimania. They had 
come not to conquer and pillage, but to conquer and occupy. 
They had brought with them accordingly their wives and 
children. They took Narbonne, Carcassone and Nimes, 
besieged Toulouse, and almost totally destroyed Bordeaux. 
Thrusting up further, they reached Burgundy on one side 
and Poitou on the other. Autun was sacked, and the 
church of S. Hilary in Poitiers given to the flames. The 
Christians, wherever met with, were hewn down with their 
curved scimitars ; they passed on like a swarm of locusts 
leaving desolation in their wake. Those of the natives who 

74 



SOUTERRAINS 

escaped did so by taking advantage of the subterranean 
refuges either natural or artificial that abounded. And 
that they did so is shown by the relics of Merovingian times 
that have been found in them. 

The Mussulmans were routed at Poitiers by Charles 
Martel. Three hundred thousand Saracens, say the old 
chroniclers, with their usual exaggeration, fell before the 
swords of the Christians. The rest fled under the walls 
of Narbonne. 

Between 752 and 759 Pepin the Short resolved on the 
conquest of Septimania, i.e. Lower Languedoc. The Goths 
there had risen against the Arabs and appealed for his aid. 
Nimes, Agde, Beziers, Carcassonne opened their gates, but 
Narbonne resisted for seven years. When it surrendered 
in 759, the Empire of the Franks for the first time touched 
the Eastern Pyrenees. Pepin now picked a quarrel with 
Waifre, Duke of Aquitaine, and crossing the Loire made 
of the unhappy country a hunting-ground for the Franks. 
He delivered the land over to a systematic devastation. 
From the Loire to the Garonne the houses were burnt, and 
the trees cut down. " The churches, the monasteries, and 
secular buildings were reduced to ashes. Vineyards and 
fields were ravaged, and the inhabitants put to the edge 
of the sword. Only a few strong places escaped the fury 
of the soldiers. . . . The city of Cahors fell into the power 
of the conqueror and was reduced to the same pitiable 
condition into which it had been brought by the Saracens. 
The inhabitants of Quercy who survived owed this to the 
subterranean retreats which they had made and to the caverns 
in the rocks that had served them as refuges during the 
incursion of the infidels. The principal caves are situated 
on the Banks of the Lot at Cami, Luzech, Vers, Bouzier, 
S. Cirq, La Toulsanie, Larnagol, Calvignac, S. Jean de 
Laur, Cajarc and Laroque-Toirac, to above Capdenac; on 
the banks of the Cele, at Roquefort, Espagnac, Brengues, 

75 



SOUTERRAINS 

S. Sulpice, Marcillac, Liauzun, Sauliac, Cabrerets; on the 
banks of the Dordogne at Belcastel, La Cave, Le Bon 
Sairon, Mayronne, Blansaguet, Montvalent, Gluges, Saint 
Denis, &€., and between the rivers, Autoire, Gramat, S. Cirq 
d'Alzou, Rocamadour, S. Martin de Vers, Crass Guillot, 
to Vers among the high cliffs athwart which runs the 
Roman aqueduct, which in certain places, behind its high 
walls, could shelter a great number of the inhabitants. 
These caverns are still called Gouffios, Gouffieros, or WaifFers, 
from the name of Duke Waifre.^ They were closed by a 
wall, of which there are remains at Canis, at Brengues, and 
at S. Jean de Laur, on the rock that commands the abyss of 
Lantoui. This last cavern is the most remarkable of all, 
as it is at but a little distance from the castle of Cenevieres, 
which was one of the principal strongholds of the Duke of 
Aquitaine in Quercy." ^ 

The wretched country had to suffer next from the ex- 
pedition of the Northmen, who pushed up every river, 
destroying, pillaging, and showing no mercy to man or 
beast. The most redoutable of these pirates was Hastings, 
who ravaged the banks of the Loire between 843 and 850, 
sacked Bordeaux and Saintes and menaced Tarbes. In 866 
he was again in the Loire, and penetrated as far as Clermont 
Ferrand. There seemed to be no other means of appeasing 
him than by granting him the country of Chartres. But 
this did not content his turbulent spirit, and at the age of 
nearly seventy he abandoned his county to resume his piracies. 

An Icelandic Saga relating the adventures of a Viking, 
Orvar Odd in Aquitaine, describes how he saw some of the 
natives taking refuge in an underground retreat, and how 
he pursued and killed them all.^ 

^ Lacoste's derivation is absurd ; Gouflfieros comes from Gouffre, a 
chasm. 

2 Lacoste, Histoire de Quercy, Cahors, 1883, i. pp. 267-8. 
^ Fornmanna Sogur, Copenhagen, 1829, ii. p. 229. 

76 



SOUTERRAINS 

In the persecution of the Albigenses at the instigation 
of Pope Innocent III. the unfortunate heretics fled to the 
caves, but were hunted, or smoked out and massacred by 
the Papal emissaries. Nevertheless, a good many escaped, 
and in 1325, when John XXII. was reigning in Avignon, he 
ordered a fresh hattu of heretics. A great number fled to 
the cave of Lombrive near Ussat in Ariege. It consists of 
an immense hall, and runs to the length of nearly four miles. 
In 1328 the papal troops, to save themselves the trouble or 
risk of penetrating into these recesses after their prey, built 
up the entrance, and left from four to five hundred Albi- 
genses along with their bishops to perish therein of starva- 
tion. Of late years the bones have been collected, removed, 
and buried. From 1152, the Bordelois, Saintonge, Agenois, 
Perigord, and the Limousin were nominally under the 
English crown. But the people did not bear their subjec- 
tion with patience, and often rose in revolt, and their 
revolts were put down with ferocity. As to the Barons and 
Seigneurs of Guyenne, they took which side suited their 
momentary convenience, and shifted their allegiance as 
seemed most profitable to them. But the worst season was 
after the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, when a vast part of 
France, from the Loire to the Pyrenees was made over to 
the English. The Hundred Years' War was the consequence, 
of which more shall be said in the fifth chapter. Froissart 
describes the condition of the country: "Matters were so 
woven together there and the lords and knights were so 
divided, that the strong trampled down the weak, and 
neither law nor reason was measured out to any man. 
Towns and castles were intermixed inextricably ; some were 
English, others French, and they attacked one another and 
ransomed and pillaged one another incessantly." 

Under these circumstances it may well be understood that 
if Nature herself had not of her own accord furnished the 
miserable, harassed people with refuges, they would them- 

77 



SOUTERRAINS 

selves have contrived some. As we shall see they did this, 
as well as make use of the natural provision supplied for 
their safety. 

Of refuges there are two kinds, those patiently and 
laboriously excavated under the surface of the soil, and 
those either natural or contrived high up in the face of 
inaccessible cliffs. 

Each shall be dealt with ; they are different in character. 
The town of Saint Macaire on the Garonne is walled about. 
But the walls did not give to the citizens all the security 
they desired; the ramparts might be battered down, 
escaladed, or the gates burst open. Accordingly they ex- 
cavated, beneath the town, a complete labyrinth of passages, 
chambers, halls, and store-rooms into which they might 
either retreat themselves or where they might secure their 
valuables in the event of the town being sacked. 

At Alban in Tarn there are retreats of like nature under 
the houses, refuges at one time of the persecuted Albigenses, 
at another of the inhabitants secreting themselves and their 
goods from the Routiers. At Molieres in Lot they are 
beneath the church, and the approximate date can be fixed 
when these were excavated, as Molieres was founded 
in 1260. 

Bourg-sur-Garonne is likewise honeycombed with such 
retreats, so is Aubeterre, of which more hereafter. The 
network of underground galleries and chambers is now 
closed, because the soft chalk rock has fallen in in several 
places. At Ingrandes-sur-Vienne there are three groups of 
these refuges, extending to a considerable distance. At 
Chateau Robin in the Touraine is a chalk cliff that rises 
above the road to the height of sixty feet and is crowned by 
a tumulus. In its face are two sets of caves, one superposed 
over the other. This upper cave or shelter is the most 
ancient, and dates from prehistoric times, but has been 
utilised much later. The lower cave is exposed by the 

78 



SOUTERRAINS 

widening of the road which has obliterated the original face 
of the cliff and the original entrance, having made three 
openings by cutting into a chamber to which formerly there 
was but a single entrance. The plan of the excavation was 
made by M. Antoine and communicated to the " Bulletin 
de la Societe Archeologique de Touraine," in 1858, but I 
will give a description from the pen of a later visitor. 

"The upper rock-shelter has been dug out or enlarged 
with a pick. The stone is a tender tufa, containing a 
quantity of little cores of black silex, giving it a spotty 
appearance. It was quite impossible to cut the stone so as 
to give a smooth surface. 

" The most mysterious portion, however, of the whole is 
certainly the lower range of vaults, a subject of terror to 
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who believe them to 
be the abode of the devil. Some persons have visited them, 
but very few have explored them. Having calculated on 
the assistance of a poacher of some repute as a fearless 
fellow, he pointblank refused to accompany me when I pro- 
posed an expedition into the cave. I applied to a man of 
more resolution, a landowner at Arzay-le-Rideau, who 
readily volunteered his assistance ; but when we arrived on 
the spot, contented himself with showing me the entrance, 
but declined to adventure himself within, though he assured 
me he had visited the interior some five-and-twenty or 
thirty years ago. 

"These excavations have now several openings upon the 
road ; the two principal are accessible enough, if one is suit- 
ably dressed, for beyond the entrance one has to crawl on 
hands and knees, and this is but the initiation of other 
discomforts. 

" The entrances are, so to speak, in the ditch of the road 
to Azay. The most practicable of them, and that by which 
M. Antoine and I penetrated, is the easternmost of the 
three, and is marked A on the plan, and it gives access to a 

79 



SOUTERRAINS 



small triangular chamber C ; but the entrance is so low that 
one can only enter on one's knees or in a doubled position. 
Further on it is loftier. On advancing to the end one leaves 

on the right a sort of stair- 
case B cut in the rock, but 
very worn, which formerly 
ascended spirally to the 
upper cave, but is now 
without issue. 

" At the bottom of the 
chamber C a very narrow 
passage turns at a right 
angle and gives access to 
a large hall E that is sus- 
tained by a pillar F. This 
pillar is three feet square 
and the vaulted chamber 
may be 15 to 18 feet 
square and 5 feet high. 
On the left a great pier 
G allows of two passages 
1 1 which lead to the other 
openings that gape upon 
the road, and turning to 
the right give access to 
the further depths of the 
underground retreat. A 
passage H is, however, the 
most direct means of com- 
munication between the 
cavern E and the larger hall J to which also access is 
obtained through the openings I I separated by the pillar S. 
"The cavern J, the largest of all, is 25 feet long by 15 
feet wide at the one end and 24 feet at the other. It is 
supported by the pillar K, shaped to suit the widening of 

80 




Plan of the Refuge of Chateau Robin 
(Indre at Loire), 



SOUTERRAINS 

the hall. At the bottom of this chamber is a staircase L 
descending from the floor and without any breastwork to 
protect it, and therefore dangerous, as it goes down 6 feet, 
and is but about a foot and a half wide. This staircase is 
12 feet long, and the passage M that is a continuation of 
it is hardly more than 4 feet high; at the entrance, and is 
nearly 20 feet long, so that one has to creep along it, bent 
double, assisted by one's hands. 

"In this position it is absolutely impossible for one to 
turn round, so narrow is the passage. At this point a 
difficulty that is not anticipated arrests many a visitor. 
Water rises through the stones that form the floor and con- 
tributes to reduce the height of the gallery. If one elects to 
continue, there is no choice but to take a bath that reaches 
to one's middle. At a distance of nearly 7 feet comes a 
right angle, and the passage goes on for 6 feet, then turns 
to the left by an obtuse angle and pursues its course for 
12 feet, then again turns to the right by another obtuse 
angle, and for 15 feet more one is still half under water, 
till N is reached, after which the level of the floor rises, as 
does also the ceiling ; one is able to stand erect alongside of 
another person. In face of one, the wall is cut perpendi- 
cularly and seems abruptly to close the passage. However, 
at a few inches above the soil is a little opening D, formed 
like the mouth of an oven, and giving indications of a space 
beyond. In diameter it is about 1 foot 6 inches ; by crawl- 
ing through this hole, an achievement difficult to accomplish, 
as one cannot even use the elbows to work one's way forward, 
the explorer descends into a semicircular hall P whose vault 
is arched and is supported by two oval pillars, 7 feet 
high. The hall is 24 feet deep and 18 feet wide at the 
entrance, and is rounded at the further extremity. The soil 
in this chamber is encumbered with stones and rubbish 
thrown in from an opening at R, which seems to communi- 
cate with other subterranean excavations." 

81 F 



SOUTERRAINS 

Nothing was found in these chambers and passages that 
could give an approximate date, but in the upper " abris " 
was some Gaulish pottery. The water that had half filled 
the lower passage is due to the river having been dammed 
up for a mill, and so having raised the level considerably. 
Originally the passage was certainly dry. 

Although this souterrain refuge is curious, yet it does not 
present some of the peculiarities noticeable in others — that 
is to say, elaborate preparations for defence, by contriving 
pitfalls for the enemy and means of assailing him in flank 
and rear. 

The usual artifice for protection was this. The entrance 
from without led by a gallery or vestibule to an inner door- 
way that opened into the actual refuge. The passage to 
this interior doorway was made to descend at a rapid incline, 
and as it descended it became lower, so that an enemy enter- 
ing would probably advance at a run, and doubled, and 
would pitch head foremost into a well, from 20 to 30 feet 
deep, bottle-shaped, sunk in the floor immediately before the 
closed and barred door, and which was gaping to receive him. 
Such a well-mouth would usually have a plank crossing it, 
but in time of danger this plank would be removed. To 
make doubly sure of precipitating the assailant into it, a side- 
chamber was contrived with slots commanding the doorway, 
through which slots pikes, spears and swords could be thrust. 

Beside these contrivances there were also lateral recesses 
in which the defenders might lurk in ambush, to rush 
forth to hew at the enemy, or at least to extinguish his 
torch. Almost invariably these hypogees have two exits 
or entrances, so that those within could escape by one 
should the enemy force the other, or endeavour to smoke 
them out. Moreover, to keep up a circulation of air, and 
to obviate the contingency of being smoked out, these 
underground retreats are almost invariably supplied with 
ventilating shafts. The marks made by the implements 

82 



SOUTERRAINS 

employed in hewing the rbck are always distinctly recog- 
nisable. Moreover within, sunk in the floor, are silos for 
the storage of grain, the soil often somewhat higher about 
their orifices than elsewhere, and sometimes provided with 
covers. Niches for lamps may be seen, also cupboards for 





TTTTTVTr?'^/ 




Sections. 



Chateau of Fayrolle (Dordogne). 



A. Entrance. 

B. Continuation, unexplored. 

C. Shaft. 

DD. Doorways. 

E. Modern entrance. 



FF. Store chambers. 

G. Large chamber. 

H. Slot for stabbing assailants. 

K. Ventilating shaft. 



provisions, in which have been found collections of acorns, 
walnuts, hazel-nuts and chestnuts carbonized by age. 

A typical souterrain refuge is that of the Chateau de 
Fayrolle, not far from Riberac on the Dordogne. 

It was accidentally discovered when the proprietor was 
levelling for terraces and gardens. A glance at the plan 
will save a description. 



SOLTTERRAINS 

A refuge at S. Gauderic has been explored. The region 
is one of lacustrine deposits called the Sandstone of Car- 
cassonne ; it is friable, argiiaceous marl. The opening into 
the hypogee is in the middle of a field, and there are no 
indications around of the deposition of the material extracted 
in the formation of the retreat, so as to betray its presence. 
The visitor descends by a dozen steps into a long corridor, 
sinuous, and inclining downwards, about 1 foot 8 inches wide, 
and 4 feet 6 inches high. The passage exhibits rebates in 
several places, into which door-frames had been fitted, as well 
as square holes into which the beams were run that fastened 
the doors. It leads past several side-chambers into which 
the defenders might retire, so as to burst forth suddenly 
and unexpectedly on the foe, smite him and extinguish any 
torch he bore. The corridor leads to a rectangular hall 22 
feet long and 7 feet high, vaulted and ventilated by three 
circular airholes, 6 inches in diameter. There are numerous 
silos in the floor, and fragments of coarse grey pottery 
turned on the wheel have been found there.^ 

M. L. Druyn, in his La Guyenne Militaire, Bordeaux, 
1865, gives the following account of a refuge he explored. 
" Ascending the valley that separates the castle of Roque- 
fort from the church of Lugasson, after having passed the 
village of Fauroux, one reaches, on the left side of the road, 
a splendid quarry of hard stone, but a few paces further on, 
upon the same side, the stone becomes soft. Here on the 
right, in a little coppice beside the road, is found a place of 
refuge of which I give the plan as accurately as it was possible 
for me to take it where one had to crawl on hands and knees, 
and sometimes wriggle forward lying on one's stomach, over 
earth that was damp and rubble fallen from above, and in 
corridors completely filled by one human body. 

"The entrance is at A on a level with the soil outside 
against the rock, but this cannot have been the original 
1 Revue de VArt Chretienne, Paris, 1868, p. 498 et seq. 

84 



SOUTERRAINS 

place of admission. It is a round hole and very narrow. 
The real entrance was at K, where one can distinguish 
a circular opening like the orifice of a silo, but which is now 
in the open and is choked with stones ; or else at the end 
of the gallery H B. The chamber Y containing silos for 
preservation of grain must have been the furthest extremity. 
It is 6 feet S inches high, and the floor is higher above the 




Cluseau de Fauroux. 

mouth of the silos than elsewhere. The cavern is hewn out 
of the rock. All the chambers are circular. They are 
vaulted for the most part in the form of low cupolas. The 
domes of some are so low that one cannot stand upright in 
them. The corridors are still lower than the chambers, 
and one can only get along them by creeping. The ex- 
tremities of the corridors and the entrances to the chambers 
had doors originally. One can see the notches for the 
reception of the closing beams. I saw no trace of hinges. 
The passages are all arched over in semicircle."" 

Lacoste, speaking of the Saracen invasion and devastation 

85 



SOUTERRAINS 

of Quercy, says that " in Lower Quercy, where caverns are 
not common as they are in Upper Quercy, the inhabitants 
dug souterrains with a labour that only love of life could 
prompt. Three of vast extent have been discovered at 
Fontanes, Mondoumerc, and Olmie. That of Mondoumerc 
is cut in the tufa, and is about 20 feet deep. It consists of 
an infinity of cells, or small chambers, united by a corridor. 
But the vastest and most remarkable for its extent and the 
labour devoted on it, is that of Olmie. The chambers are 
scooped out of a very hard sandstone. In some of them are 
little wells or reservoirs that were filled with water as a 
precaution against thirst, if refugees were obliged to remain 
long in this asylum. The passages, with their turns, con- 
stitute a veritable labyrinth whence it would be hard to 
find one's way out without the assistance of a guide." 

The entrance to these hiding-places was either under a 
ledger stone in a church, or through a cellar, or half-way 
down a well, or in a thicket. 

It must be remembered that it was the duty of every 
feudal seigneur to provide for the safety of his vassels, and 
the security of their goods. Consequently a great number 
of such souterrai7is are under castles or in the grounds of 
a feudal lord. The rock on which his towers stood was 
often drilled through and through with galleries, chambers, 
and store places, for this purpose. On the alarm being 
given of the approach of an army marching through the 
land, of a raid by a marauding neighbour, or the hovering 
of a band of brigands over the spot, within a few hours all 
this underground world was filled with ploughs, looms, 
bedding, garments, household stuff of every description, and 
rang with the bleating of sheep, the lowing of oxen, the 
neighing of horses, and the whimpering of women and 
children. At Vendome, the rock on which stands the castle 
is riddled with passages and halls, access to which is obtained 
not from the castle, but from the town. At Lavardin by 

86 



SOUTERRAINS 

Montoire it is the same. At Paulin in Tarn is a noble castle 
standing on a rock 300 feet high, and in this rock are store- 
rooms, halls, a kitchen, a winding staircase. At Montvalon- 
Tauriac, in the same department, under the castle are refuges 
and granaries. At Murat in Cantalisthe castle of Anterroche, 
and the rocks about it are traversed with galleries leading to 
chambers containing silos. At Salles-la-Source in Aveyron, 
in a cleft of the plateau, is the castle of the Count of 
Armagnac, and here also there is the same provision. At 
S. Sulpice in Tarn are the remains of a castle built in 1247, 
with its chapel over crypts and galleries carved out of the 
living stone. At Contigne, in Maine-et-Loire, is the manor 
of Gatines, underneath which are souterrains that extend 
for a mile, with store-chambers and chapels, hewn out of the 
tufa. I might mention a hundred more. But all these 
pertain to a period before the feudal system had sunk into 
one of oppression, and when the vassals had confidence in 
their seigneur. In process of time the conditions altered, 
and then they contrived their own private hiding-places 
from their lords and masters. 

The stories everywhere prevalent where there are castles, 
that there are under them passages connecting them with 
a church, a river, or another castle, are probably due to the 
fact of there having been these subterranean retreats intended 
for the use of the vassals. But when these latter ceased to 
look to their lords to protect them, and cast about instead 
to shelter themselves from their lords, the original purport 
of these souterrains was forgotten and misinterpreted. 

One has but to look through the brief notices of towns 
and villages in Joanne's Departmental Geographies to see 
what a number of these refuges are already known to exist 
in France. And he records, be it remembered, only the 
most interesting. There are thousands more that have 
either not yet been discovered or remain unexplored. Some 
are revealed by accident ; a peasant is ploughing, when his 

87 



SOUTERRAINS 

oxen are suddenly engulfed, and he finds that they have 
broken through the roof of one of these hiding-places. A 
gentleman is building his chateau, when in sinking his 
foundations he finds the rock like a petrified sponge — but 
not like a sponge in this, that the galleries are artificial. 
A paysan lets himself down his well to clean it out, as the 
water is foul. He finds that in the side of the shaft is the 
opening of a passage; he enters, follows it, and finds a 
labyrinth of galleries. 

As an instance of the abundance of the souterrains in 
France, I will take the department of Vienne and give in a 
note below a list of the communes where they are known to be, 
from De Longuemar, GeograpJiie du dep. de la Vienne^ Poitiers, 
1882, and also from several editions of Joanne's Geography.^ 
Victor Hugo, in his Quatrevingt Treise, speaking of the 
war in La Vendee, says: "It is difficult to picture to 
oneself what these Breton forests really were. They were 
towns. Nothing could be more secret, more silent, and 
more savage. There were wells round and small, masked by 
coverings of stones or by branches. The interiors at first 
vertical, then carried horizontally, spread out underground 
like tunnels, and ended in dark chambers." These excava- 
tions, he states, had been there from time immemorial. He 
continues: "One of the wildest glades of the wood at 
Misdon, perforated by galleries and cells, out of which came 
and went a mysterious society, was called ' The Great City.' 
The gloomy Breton forests were servants and accomplices of 

^ Natural grottoes that may have served as refuges are not included. 
Availles, Bellefonds, Bethines, B^ruges, Bonnes, Bussi^res, Ch§,teau 
Garnier, Champniers, Curzay, Civeaux, Gouex, Ingrandes, S. Julien Lars 
Jazneuil, Leugny-sur-Creuse, Loudun, Lautiers, Lusignan, Marnay, Mair^ 
le-Gautier, S. Martin- Lars, S. Martin-la-Eiviere, Maslou Montmorillon 
Mazerolles, Mondion, Maulay, Montreuil - Bonnin, Naintre, Prin^ai 
Komagne, S. Eemy-sur-Creuse, Saulge, Nouvaille, Persac,S. Savin, Sossais 
Thure, Usson, Varennes, Le Vigean, Veniers, Vell^ches, Verri^res, Venneuil 
sur-Biard. Several of these are under churches, others under castles 
At some of these places are three or more distinct souterrains. 

88 



SOUTERRAINS 

rebellion. The subsoil of every forest was a sort of sponge, 
pierced and traversed in all directions by a secret highway 
of mines, cells and galleries. Each of these blind cells 
could shelter five or six men. Usually the cover, made of 
moss and branches, was so artistically fashioned that, al- 
though impossible on the outside to distinguish it from the 
surrounding turf, it was very easy to open and close from 
the inside. In several of these forests and woods there 
were not only subterranean villages grouped about the 
burrow of the chief, but also actual hamlets of low huts 
hidden under the trees. These underground belligerents 
were kept perfectly informed of what was going on. 
Nothing could be more rapid, nothing more mysterious, 
than their means of communication. Sometimes they raised 
the cover of their hiding-places and listened to hear if there 
was fighting in the distance." He mentions the ability of 
the ambushed men to spring up, as it were, under the feet 
of the armies sent against them. x\nd to show the numbers 
of the concealed forces, he continues: "There are in exist- 
ence lists which enable one to understand the powerful 
organisation of that vast peasant rebellion. In Isle-et- 
Villaine, in the forest of Pertre, not a human trace was to 
be found, yet there were collected 6000 men under Focard. 
In the forest of Meullac, in Morhiban, not a soul was to be 
seen, yet it held 8000 men. These deceptive copses were 
filled with fighters, lurking in an underground labyrinth." 

On March 26, 1807, Napoleon demanded a fresh con- 
scription of 80,000 men. This was the third levy that had 
been called for since the Prussian War began. The three 
conscriptions supplied no less than 240,000 men in seven 
months, and the call for the third produced consternation 
throughout France. The number of young men who reached 
the age of eighteen annually in half a year, more than the 
entire annual generation, had been swept off to lay their 
bones in the East of Europe. Great numbers of voung 

89 



SOUTERRAINS 

fellows fled to the woods, caves, and secret refuges, and con- 
cealed themselves ; and the gendarmes were employed in 
hunting them out, but not often with success unless aided by 
a traitor. Again in 1812, when Napoleon meditated an 
invasion of Russia, fresh calls were made on the male popu- 
lation. Every male capable of bearing arms was forced to 
assume them, and again, as in 1807, the young men dis- 
appeared as rabbits underground. It is quite possible that 
the peasants, who have found these refuges so convenient 
in the past, should know more about them and where they 
are situated than they pretend, thinking that at some 
future time, another revolution or another German invasion, 
the knowledge may prove serviceable. 

And now let us turn to Picardy, perhaps the one of the 
ancient provinces of France most undermined. On the 
night of February 13, 1834, after heavy rains, a portion 
of the wall of the apse of the parish church of Gapennes, 
half-way between Aussy-le-Chateau and S. Ricquier, col- 
lapsed, and in the morning the inhabitants of the commune 
were stupefied to see the desolation of the holy place. Not 
only was a large breach gaping in the sanctuary, but all 
the walls of the chancel were fissured, and the pavement 
of the nave was upheaved in places and in others rent. 

At first it was supposed that this was the result of an 
earthquake, but after a while the true cause was discovered. 
The church had been erected over a vast network of subter- 
ranean passages and chambers, and the roofs of some of 
these had given way. This led to an exploration, and the 
plan of this subterranean refuge — for such it had been — 
was traced as far as possible. 

But Gapennes is not the only place where such retreats 
exist throughout the province. Something like a hundred 
have been found, and more are every now and then coming 
to light. Indeed, it may safely be said that there is scarcely 
a village between Arras and Amiens and between Roye 

90 



SOUTERRAINS 

and the sea, betwixt the courses of the Somme and Authie, 
that was not provided with these underground refuges. 
The character of all is very much the same. They consist 
of passages communicating with square or circular chambers 
that served as stores. They have been described at length 
by M. Bouthers in Memoires de la Societe d' Archeologie du 
departement de la Somme^ Amiens, 1834, t. i. 

To what date, or period rather, do they belong ? 

Some doubtless are of extreme antiquity, but the majority 
are comparatively modern. It is a significant fact that the 
entrance to perhaps the majority is in the sacristy of the 
parish church, and in that at Gapennes care was taken not 
to undermine the tower of the church. M. de Carpentin, 
who explored and reported on the excavation at Gapennes, 
remarks on the care taken to so distribute the chalk brought 
up from these passages and vaults that no heaps were any- 
where visible. 

" The motive that can have induced the undertaking of 
such an extensive work can only have been that necessity 
drove the inhabitants to create for themselves a refuge in 
time of war." In it he found two pieces of common pottery, 
a lock and a hinge of iron, some straw and leather soles of 
women's shoes. He adds : " At the entrance of several of 
the chambers the stone is worked to receive doors, and here 
portions of decayed wood were found. And many of the 
chambers had their walls blackened by smoke as of lamps." 

At Naours in Somme, the underground galleries have 
been explored thoroughly; there are several circular 
chambers for stores, and corn has been found in them, 
also fourteen gold coins of Charles VI or Louis XIV. In 
all there are 201 galleries and 300 chambers and the laby- 
rinth extends to the distance of 6000 feet. At Santerre, 
which possesses three of these refuges, that portion of its 
territory was called Territorium Sancton Lihertatis. 

The north-east of France, Picardy and Artois, were 

91 



SOUTERRAINS 

always exposed to attack from pirates by sea, Northmen 
and Saxon, and from invaders over the border. But none of 
these can have exceeded in barbarity that of 1635 to 1641, 
when Spanish armies — the first under John de Werth and 
Piccolomini, 40,000 in number, and made up of Germans, 
Hungarians, Croats as well as Spaniards — poured over the 
provinces committing the most frightful atrocities. And 
precisely to this period some of the refuges may be referred. 
A MS. account of this invasion, by a priest of Hiermont, 
named Claude Godde, leaves this in no manner of doubt. 
He says : " The Spaniards committed great outrages in 
Picardy, as they did later in 1658. These wars compelled 
the inhabitants of Hiermont in 1647 to construct the quarry 
which we now see. This quarry or cavern, which is a great 
masterpiece, was first undertaken by five or six of the inhabit- 
ants " — he gave their names. " They first of all dug out the 
entrance in 1647, but owing to its having given way several 
times, had to be repaired, and was not completed till 1648. 
The other inhabitants, seeing its great utility, wanted also to 
have their chambers, but they were not admitted unless they 
contributed to the cost of the undertaking, and to this they 
willingly agreed. This quarry was of great service to the 
inhabitants in the Wars of Louis XIV. against England, 
Holland, and the Empire during the years 1708, 1709, 1710 
and 1711, which were the days of Marlborough. It was 
accordingly made by the inhabitants of Hiermont, to hide 
themselves, their cattle, their grain and their furniture, to 
preserve them from pillage by the soldiers, whether of the 
enemy or French. Each family had its own chamber." 

In aproces of 1638, one of those interrogated, a nun named 
Martha Tondu, stated that at Reneval and the neighbouring 
villages "the peasants are on the look out, and if alarmed, 
retire and conceal their cattle in ditches and quarries, 
without abandoning their houses or neglecting their agri- 
cultural work." 

9S 



SOUTERRAINS 

Some, accordingly, of these subterranean refuges are of 
comparatively late date; but this does not apply to all. 
At every period of danger, instinctively the peasants would 
take advantage of the nature of the chalk to form in it 
suitable hiding-places, and although some of the finds in 
these labyrinths are of recent date, others go back to the 
Gallo-Roman period. In the Arras and Cambrai Chronicle 
of Balderic (1051), we are told that in the fifth century in 
those parts a persecution of the Christians occurred, on the 
invasion of the barbarians, and that the priests celebrated 
the Divine Mysteries in secret hiding-places. " Many," 
he adds, " were suifocated in caves and in subterranean 
passages." 

There is, in fact, evidence both from archaeology and 
from history that these refuges were taken advantage of, 
and doubtless extended from a remote antiquity down to 
the eighteenth century. 

It was not against the foreign foe only that the peasants 
excavated their underground retreats. Froissart paints the 
chivalry of his time in the brightest colours, and only here 
and there by a few touches lets us see what dark shadows 
set them off. Who paid for the gay accoutrements of the 
knights ? Who were the real victims of the incessant wars ? 
From whom came the ransom of King John and of the 
nobles taken at Cre^y and Poitiers? From the peasant. 
The prisoners allowed to return on parole came to their 
territories to collect the sums demanded for their release, 
and the peasant had to find them. He had his cattle, his 
plough and tumbril. They were taken from him ; no more 
corn was left him than enough to sow his field. He knew 
how he would be exploited, and he hid his precious grain 
that was to make bread for his wife and children. The 
seigneur endeavoured to extort from him the secret as to 
where it was concealed. He exposed the man's bare feet 
before the fire ; he loaded him with chains. But the peasant 

93 



SOUTERRAINS 

bore fire and iron rather than reveal the hiding-place. 
Here is Michelet's account of the seigneur in the first 
half of the fifteenth century. " The seigneur only revisited 
his lands at the head of his soldiery to extort money by 
violence. He canie down on them as a storm of hail. All 
hid at his approach. Throughout his lands alarm resounded 
— it was a sauve-qui-peut. The seigneur is no longer a true 
seigneur ; he is a rude captain, a barbarian, hardly even a 
Christian. Ecorcheur is the true name for such, ruining 
what was already ruined, snatching the shirt off the back 
of him who had one; if he had but his skin, of that he 
was flayed. It would be a mistake to suppose that it 
was only the captains of the ecorcheur s — the bastards, the 
seigneurs without a seigneur ie, who showed themselves so 
ferocious. The grandees, the princes in these hideous wars, 
had acquired a strange taste for blood. What can one say 
when one sees Jean de Ligny, of the house of Luxembourg, 
exercise his nephew, the Count of Saint-Pol, a child of 
fifteen, in massacring those who fled ? They treated their 
kinsfolk in the same manner as their enemies. For safety — 
better be a foe than a relation. The Count d'Harcourt 
kept his father prisoner all his life. The Countess of Foix 
poisoned her sister ; the Sire de Gial his wife. The Duke 
of Brittany made his brother die of starvation, and that 
publicly ; passers-by heard with a shudder the lamentable 
voice pleading piteously for a little bread. One evening, 
the 10th of January, the Count Adolphus of Gueldres 
dragged his old father out of bed, drew him on foot, un- 
shod, through the snow for five leagues to cast him finally 
into a moat. It was the same in all the great families of the 
period — in those of the Low Countries, in those of Bar, 
Verdun, Armagnac, &c. The English had gone, but France 
was exterminating herself. The terrible miseries of the 
time find expression, feeble as yet, in the ' Complaint of the 
poor Commoner ; and of the poor Labourers.' It comprises 

94 



SOUTERRAINS 

a mixture of lamentations and threats ; the starving wretches 
warn the Church, the King, the Burgesses, the Merchants, 
the Seigneurs above all, that ' fire is drawing nigh to their 
hostels.' They appeal to the king for help. But what 
could Charles VII. do ? How impose respect and obedience 
on so many daring men ? Where could he find the means 
to repress these flayers of the country, these terrible little 
kings of castles ? They were his own captains. It was 
with their aid that he made war against the English."" ^ 

Thus, the subterranean refuges that had served at one time 
as hiding-places against Saracens, Normans, English, became 
places of retreat for the wretched people against their own 
masters. They no longer carried their goods into the 
soutetrains under the castles, but into refuges contrived by 
themselves in the depths of forests, known only to them- 
selves ; hidden, above all, from their seigneurs. 

The peasantry might have said then, what was said long 
after by Voltaire : " II faut etre dans ce monde enclume ou 
marteau; j'etais ne enclume." Voltaire, however, speedily 
became a hammer, and after 1T89 the Tiers Etat also became 
a hammer, and the Noblesse the anvil. 

In Iceland there were underground retreats, as we learn 
from the same Saga that tells us of those in Aquitaine. 
Orvar Odd found a king's daughter concealed in one. So, 
also, a very large one in Ireland is spoken of in the Landnama 
Bok. In England we have, both in Essex and in Kent, 
subterranean passages and chambers very similar to those 
described in Picardy and in Aquitaine. These also are 
excavated in the chalk. They are the so-called Dene Holes, 
of which there are many in Darenth Wood and near Chisle- 
hurst, and they have given occasion to a lively controversy. 
Some have supposed them to be retreats of the Druids, some 
that they were places of refuge during the invasions of the 
Saxons first, and then of the Danes, and others again con- 

^ Hist, de France, v. p. 184 et seq. 

95 



SOUTERRAINS 

tend that they were merely quarries for jthe excavation of 
chalk to burn into lime. 

Here is an account of the Dene Hole at Chislehurst by 
Mr. W. J. Nichols.i ''At the foot of the hill is a gap, 
which is the present entrance to the caves. A guide meets 
us here, who, unlocking a door, and switching on the electric 
light, introduces the visitor to a gallery or tunnel, about 
150 feet long, 10 feet to 12 feet high, and with a width of 
12 feet to 15 feet, narrowing to about 7 feet at the roof. 
This, and the galleries so far explored, have been cut 
through the chalk bed, at a depth of about 6 feet below 
the Thanet sand which covers it. At the end of the gallery, 
extending both right and left, are passages of like character. 
These again open into others so numerous that the visitor is 
fairly bewildered, and loses all idea of the direction in which 
he is travelling. The effect of the coloured electric lamps 
on the old chalk walling is remarkably beautiful. Proceed- 
ing on our way we get beyond the range of the electric 
lamps. Here candles or hand-lamps are lighted ; and we 
pass, in Cimmerian gloom, through a succession of galleries 
of various dimensions, some of which, being only 4 feet wide 
and 5 feet high, are possibly of earlier construction than 
those already described. There is one gallery of the last- 
mentioned height and width 63 feet long, with several sharp 
turns which formerly terminated in a chamber about 12 feet 
high and 10 feet wide, and a like length, and near it is a 
seat cut into an angle of the walling. At no great distance 
from this chamber and near a Dene-hole shaft is a short 
gallery, at the end of which is a shaft originally level with 
the flooring, but now bricked round and further protected 
by an iron cover. On removing the cover and lowering a 
lamp, a well of excellent workmanship is discovered. Owing 
to the quantity of material thrown down from time to time 

^ Nichols (W. J.)j "The Chislehurst Caves," Journal of the Archaeo- 
logical Association,'^ Dec. 1903. 

96 



SOUTERRAINS 

by explorers, its present depth is no more than 43 feet. 
Further progress is made, and presently we notice a streak 
of daylight some distance ahead ; here we find that we have 
reached the foot of a shaft 85 feet deep, which, though now 
partly covered in, had its mouth in what is at the present 
time the garden of a modern villa."" 

There are numerous other Dene Holes or Danes' Pits 
at East Tilbury, Crayford, and Little Thurrock. As 
to the theory that they were places of Druidical wor- 
ship, we may dismiss it as not deserving serious con- 
sideration. 

At East Tilbury the entrance to the Danes' pit is from 
above, by narrow passages that widen and communicate 
with several apartments, all of regular forms. One of these 
pits consists of a shaft descending to chambers arranged 
like a sixfoiled flower. The shaft is 3 feet in diameter 
and 85 feet deep. This may be likened to one at Doue- 
la-Fontaine (Maine et Loire), where a descent is made under 
a private house into an area from which radiate on all sides 
chambers, some of which contain tombs. 

That these Dene Holes were used as hiding-places when 
the sails of the Danish Vikings appeared on the horizon 
is probable enough, but originally they were chalk quarries 
— some very ancient — for British coins have been found in 
them. The existence of old lime -kilns near the Chislehurst 
caves places their origin beyond a doubt. Chalk was 
largely exported in early times from the Thames to Zealand, 
whence it was passed through the Low Countries and used 
in dressing the fields. Altars to Nethalennia, the patroness 
of the chalk quarries, have been found in the sand on 
the coast of Zealand ; some bear votive inscriptions from 
dealers in British chalk, and Pliny, writing of the finer 
quality of chalk (argentaria) employed by silversmiths, 
obtained from pits sunk like wells, with narrow mouths, 
to the depth of a hundred feet, whence they branch 

97 G 



SOUTERRAINS 

out like the adits of mines, adds, " Hoc maxime Britannia 
utitur."! 

In Cornwall, moreover, there are what are locally called 
fogous. These are either excavated in the rock with 
passages leading to the sea or to houses, or else they are 
built of stone slabs standing erect, parallel and covered 
with other slabs leading to chambers similarly constructed, 
and all buried under turf or sand. Of the former descrip- 
tion there is a very interesting example at Porthcothan in 
S. Ervan; of the latter the most remarkable is at Trelo- 
waren. The former may have been excavated by smugglers. 
An interesting account of the excavation of two caves at 
Archerfield, in Haddingtonshire, is given in the Proceedings 
of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for 1909. Both 
caves are natural, but one had been walled up in front, 
with a doorway and window and with oven ; both had 
paved hearths in the centre, and there was evidence that 
they had been tenanted some time after the Roman occupa- 
tion of Britain, as among the fragments of pottery found 
was some Sam i an ware. It would appear that both had been 
inhabited simultaneously, but not consecutively, for a lengthy 
period, and no doubt can exist that they were mere rock 
refuges. In a note to the article we read : " On the coast of 
Island Magee (Ireland) there is a cave, south of the Gobbins, 
which has been frequently used as a place of refuge. So 
late as 1798 it was inhabited by outlaws, who constructed 
a kind of fortification at the entrance, the remains of which 
still exist.'' ^ 

A cave in the Isle of Egg, one of the Hebrides, has a 
very narrow entrance, through which one can creep only 
upon hands and knees, but it rises steeply within and soon 
becomes lofty, and runs into the bowels of the rock for 

^ Eoach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, vi. p. 243, " British Archseological 
Assoc. Journal," N.S., ix -x. (1903 and 1904), 

* Cree (J. E,), "Excavation of Two Caves," in ''Proceedings of the 
Soc. of Arch, of Scotland," Edin., 1909, vol. xliii. 

98 



SOUTERRAINS 

225 feet. The stony, pebbly bottom of this cavern was for 
long strewn with the bones of men, women and children, the 
relics of the ancient inhabitants of the island, two hundred 
in number, of whose destruction the following account is 
given. " The Macdonalds, of the Isle of Egg, a people 
dependent on Clanranald, had done some injury to the Lord 
of Macleod. The tradition of the isle says that it was by 
a personal attack on the chieftain, in which his back was 
broken; but that of the two other isles bears that the 
injury was offered by two or three of the Macleods, who, 
landing upon Egg and behaving insolently towards the 
islanders, were bound hand and foot, and turned adrift in 
a boat, which the winds safely conducted to Skye. To 
avenge the offence given, Macleod sailed with such a body 
of men as rendered resistance hopeless. The natives, fearing 
his vengeance, concealed themselves in the cavern ; and, after 
strict search, the Macleods went on board their galleys 
after doing what mischief they could, concluding the in- 
habitants had left the isle. But next morning they espied 
from their vessels a man upon the island, and immediately 
landing again, they traced his retreat by means of a light 
snow on the ground to the cavern. Macleod then sum- 
moned the subterranean garrison, and demanded that the 
inhabitants who had offended him should be delivered up. 
This was peremptorily refused. The chieftain thereupon 
caused his people to divert the course of a rill of water, 
which, falling over the mouth of the cave, would have 
prevented his purposed vengeance. He then kindled at 
the entrance of the cavern a large fire, and maintained 
it until all within were destroyed by suffocation." ^ 

A no less horrible deed was committed during the 
campaign of Essex against the Irish rebels in 1575. This 
shall be given in the words of Froude.^ 

1 Lockhart's " Life of Sir Walter Scott," Edin., 1844, p. 285. 

2 "Hist, of England," 1870, x. p. 527 et seq. 

99 



SOUTERRAINS 

'' On the coast of Antrim, not far from the Giant's Cause- 
way, lies the singular island of Rathlin. It is formed of 
basaltic rock, encircled with precipices, and is accessible 
only at a single spot. It contains an area of about 4000 
acres, of which a thousand are sheltered and capable of 
cultivation, the rest being heather and rock. The approach 
is at all times dangerous ; the tide sets fiercely through the 
strait which divides the island from the mainland, and 
when the wind is from the west, the Atlantic swell renders 
it impossible to land. The situation and the difficulty of 
access had thus long marked Rathlin as a place of refuge 
for Scotch or Irish fugitives, and besides its natural strength 
it was respected as a sanctuary, having been the abode at 
one time of Saint Columba. A mass of broken masonry 
on a cliff overhanging the sea is a remnant of the castle, 
in which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the legendary 
spider. To this island, when Essex entered Antrim, Mac- 
connell and the other Scots had sent their wives and children, 
their aged, and their sick, for safety. On his way through 
Carrickfergus, when returning from Dublin, the Earl ascer- 
tained that they had not yet been brought back to their 
homes. The officer in command of the English garrison 
was John Norris, Lord Norris's second son. Three small 
frigates were in the harbour. The sea was smooth; there 
was a light and favourable air from the east; and Essex 
directed Norris to take a company of soldiers with him, 
cross over, and kill whatever he could find. The run up 
the Antrim coast was rapidly and quietly accomplished. 
Before an alarm could be given the English had landed, 
close to the ruins of the church that bears Saint Columba's 
name. Bruce's castle was then standing, and was occupied 
by a detachment of Scots, who were in charge of the women. 
But Norris had brought cannon with him. The weak 
defences were speedily destroyed, and after a fierce assault, 
in which several of the garrison were killed, the chief who 

100 



SOUTERRAINS 

was in command oiFered to surrender if he and his people 
were allowed to return to Scotland. The conditions were 
rejected; the Scots yielded at discretion, and every living 
creature in the place, except the chief and his family, who 
were probably reserved for ransom, were immediately put 
to the sword. Two hundred were killed in the castle. It 
was then discovered that several hundred more, chiefly 
mothers and their little ones, were hidden in the caves 
about the shore. There was no remorse — not even the 
faintest perception that the occasion called for it. They 
were hunted out as if they had been seals or otters, and all 
destroyed. Surleyboy and the other chiefs, Essex coolly 
wrote, 'stood upon the mainland of Glynnes and saw the 
taking of the island, and was likely to have run mad for 
sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he 
had there lost all that ever he had.' According to Essex's 
own account, six hundred were thus massacred. He 
described the incident as one of the exploits with which he 
was most satisfied ; and Queen Elizabeth in answer to his 
letters bade him tell John Norris, 'the executioner of his 
well-designed enterprise, that she would not be unmindful 
of his services.' " The neighbourhood of Gortyna in Crete 
has a mountain labyrinth, and during the revolt of the 
Cretans against the Turks in 1822-28, the Christian inhabit- 
ants of the adjacent villages, for months together, lived in 
these caves, sallying forth by day to till their farms or 
gather in their crops, when it was safe so to do. None 
could approach within range of the muskets pointed from 
the loopholes at the entrance without being immediately 
shot down ; nor could either fire or smoke suffocate or dis- 
lodge the inmates, as the caves have many openings. 

Less happy were the Christian refugees in the cave of 
Melidoni. In 1822, when Hussein Bey marched against 
the neighbouring village, the inhabitants, to the number 
of three hundred, fled to the cave, taking their valuables 

101 



SOUTERRAINS 

with them. Hussein ordered a quantity of combustibles 
to be piled at the entrance and set on fire. The poor wretches 
within were all smothered. The Turks waited a few days, 
and then entered and rifled the bodies. A week later, three 
natives of the village crept into the cavern to see what 
had become of their relatives. It is said that they were 
so overcome by the horror of what they witnessed, that two 
of them died within a few days. Years after, the Arch- 
bishop of Crete blessed the cavern, and the bones of the 
victims of Turkish barbarity were collected and buried 
in the outer hall, which has in its centre a lofty stalagmite 
reaching to the summit, and the walls on all sides are 
draped with stalactites. 

We must not pass over without a word the treatment 
of the Arabs in Algeria by the French troops, when 
General Lamorciere suffocated the unfortunate refugees in 
the caves whither they had fled, in the same way as Caesar's 
general had suffocated the Gauls. 



102 



CHAPTER IV 

CLIFF REFUGES 

I HAVE divided Refuges into two classes — those that 
have been burrowed under the soil, and those that open 
in the face of a cliff. Occasionally they run one into 
another, and yet they materially differ. The first have 
their entrances elaborately concealed, whereas the latter are 
bare to the face of day, and no concealment is possible or 
attempted. Those who had recourse to the first trusted in 
being able, should the entrance be discovered or betrayed, 
to defend themselves by various devices, whereas those who 
resorted to the latter relied on their inaccessibility. 

Where a cliff stood up precipitous or overhanging, and in 
its face gaped caverns, those who sought refuge in time of 
danger naturally looked to them, and contrived means of 
reaching them, therein to ensconce their goods and secure 
their persons. They might have to contemplate the devas- 
tation of their fields, and their farms burning, from their 
eyries, but they knew that their persons were safe. There 
were various ways by which these caves could be reached ; 
one was by cutting notches in the face of the cliff for fingers 
and toes, so that it could be climbed to from below, but 
not accessible to an enemy exposed to the thrust of pikes, 
and to stones being cast down upon him. Or else the 
notches were cut laterally from an accessible ledge, but if so, 
then this mode of approach was carefully guarded. A 
second method was by ladders, but as some of these caves are 
so high up that no single ladder could reach their mouths, 
a succession was contrived notched below and above into 

103 



CLIFF REFUGES 

the rock where ledges either existed naturally or were 
contrived artificially, so as to enable the climber to step 
from one ladder to the next. In the event of danger the 
ladders could be withdrawn. A third method was by a 
windlass, rope and basket, and this was employed where the 
ascent by finger and toe notches was peculiarly perilous, 
for the conveyance of goods or of children and old people. 
But cattle had also to be saved from the depredators, and in 
some of the cliff refuges are stables for horses and cowstalls, 
with mangers and silos ; places also where the windlass was 
fixed and there the sharp edge of the rock has been smoothed 
to an easy slope to facilitate the landing of the beasts, that 
were hauled up by bands placed under their bellies. Pro- 
vision was also made for the baking of bread and the 
storage of water, this latter in the same way as already 
described in the account of the contrivances for permanent 
rock-dwellings. These cliff refuges can have been had 
recourse to only on emergencies, on account of their inacces- 
sibility. 

At Gazelles in the commune of Sireuil (Dordogne) is a 
cliff 1200 feet long, and about 150 feet high. It has. been 
worn into a deep farrow some twenty or thirty feet from the 
top, horizontal and running its entire length. The whole 
cliff overhangs its base. The entire groove has been occupied 
as a refuge, and there have been excavations in the back of 
the groove for additional chambers. In front, moreover, 
there must have been a balcony of wood, sustained by beams 
and props. In three places the edge of the terrace has been 
cut through for the convenience of hauling up cattle and 
farm produce. At the time when this was in use there was 
a hamlet at the foot of the cliff, as is shown by the furrows 
cut in the rock into which the tile roofing was let, and notches 
for the reception of the roof timbers. 

No trace of a stair remains ; in fact no stair could have 
been cut in the face of a rock that overhangs as does this. 

104 



CLIFF REFUGES 

Another very remarkable cliff-refuge is Le Peuch Saint 
Sour on the Vezere. It is not mentioned in any chronicle 
as having been a resort of the English in the Hundred 
Years' War, and we may accordingly conclude that it was 
a refuge for the inhabitants of the hamlet at its feet. 

S. Sorus or Sour was a hermit, born about the year 500 ; 
he set oiF with two companions, Amandus and Cyprian, to 
find a desert place where he might take up his abode. I 
will quote from the Latin life. "All at once in their 
wanderings they arrived at a place in the midst of vast 
forests, and dens of wild beasts, a place so barren and 
abrupt, of access so difficult, that surely no one had ever 
hitherto ventured to reach it either to dwell there, or for 
pleasure, even to visit it for curiosity. A rock very lofty 
furnished him above with a shelter that sufficed ; out of the 
flanks of the rock issued a spring and watered the little 
valley that was on the other side surrounded by the Vezere." 

I think that it was in the Peuch S. Sour that the hermit 
settled, though afterwards through the favour of King 
Gontram he moved to lands granted him at Terrasson. 
And now for a story. Here he resolved to live alone, and here 
he parted with his companions. But before they separated, 
" Let us have a love feast together," said he. But he had 
with him only a bit of fat bacon. He divided it into three 
parts, and gave a share to each of his companions. Now 
it was Lent, and one of them was scandalized at the idea 
of eating bacon in Lent, so he put the bit of meat into his 
bosom, where it was at once transformed into a serpent, 
which enwrapped him in its coils. Terrified, he screamed 
to Sour to deliver him, which the hermit did, and the 
monster was at once resolved into a bit of bacon. "Eat 
it," said the hermit, " and remember that Charity is above 
all rules." 

The description of the place so well accords with the 
Peuch that bears his name, that I cannot doubt but that 

105 



CLIFF REFUGES 

Sour occupied for some years the cave high up in the cliff, 
and only to be reached by crawling to it sideways, holding 
on to the rock by fingers and toes. But afterwards it was 
greatly enlarged to serve as a place of retreat by the peasants 
of the hamlet below. It consists of three groups of chambers 
cut in the rock, one reached by a very long, forty-round 
ladder, when a chamber is entered which has a hole in the 
roof through which, by another ladder, one can mount to a 
whole series of chambers communicating one with another. 
The face of some of these was originally walled up. A 
second group is now inaccessible. A third is reached by 





Beginning of a Gallery. 



The Pick employed. 



climbing along the face of the cliff, with fingers and toes 
placed in niches cut in the cleft to receive them. 

A recess at the foot of the crag, arched above, contains 
three perpendicular grooves. This was the beginning of 
another artificial cave, never completed, begun maybe in 
1453 and suddenly abandoned, as the glad tidings rang 
through the land that the English had abandoned Aquitaine 
and that the Companies were disbanded. 

At the Roc d'Aucor, in the valley of the Vers (Lot), a 
gaping cave is visible far above where any ladder could reach 
and inaccessible by climbing from the top of the crag, as 
that overhangs like a wave about to break. Nevertheless, 
athwart the opening are, and have been from time im- 
memorial, two stout beams let into the rock horizontally. 

106 



CLIFF REFUGES 

Dimly visible in the depth of the cavern is some tall white 
figure, and the peasants declare that it is that of a man — a 
statue in marble, keeping guard over a golden calf. 

In 1894, M. Martel and three friends, taking with them 
Armand, the trusty help in descending avens, pot-holes, 
and exploring the course of subterranean rivers, resolved 
on an attempt at the exploration of this mysterious cavern. 

The mouth is 90 feet from the ground, and its floor 
is about 95 feet from the summit of the cliff,i which is 
crowned by the oppidurn of Murcens, the best preserved 
of all Gaulish strongholds in France, and was held by the 
English in 1370. The only possible way to obtain access 
to the interior would be from above, as the plumb-line let 
down from the summit fell 44 feet wide from the base of 
the cliff. Accordingly a rope ladder was attached to a tree 
on the top, and Armand descended furnished with a plumb- 
line, the end of which was* attached to a cord. "Having 
descended 77 feet, he swung free in the air at the level of 
the transverse poles. Then he endeavoured to throw the 
lead-weight beyond one of the poles. He succeeded only 
after the seventh or eighth attempt, and was well pleased 
when the weight running over it swung down to our feet, 
as the position of the poles and the slope of the floor of 
the fissure did not allow it to rest in the cavern. 'Pull 
the cord,' shouted Armand. ' What for ? ' ' You will soon 
see. Pull ' — and speedily the string drew after it one 
of our stout ropes. ' Now do you understand ? "* asked 
Armand. 'I have fastened my rope ladder to the cord 
that goes over the pole. Four or five of you pull and draw 
me in towards that pole, and so we shall get the better of 
the situation. When I have fixed the ladder to the pole 
you may all mount by the grand stair.' " 

By good fortune that beam held firm, and first Armand 
got into the cave and then the others mounted from below. 
^ Martel (A.), Le Refuge du Roc d'Aucor, Brive, 1895. 

107 



CLIFF REFUGES 

What made the entrance treacherous was that the floor at 
the orifice sloped rapidly downwards and outwards. 

When within, it was seen that the posts were still solid 
and firmly planted in notches cut in the rock on both sides. 
In line with them were two rows of similar notches for the 
reception of beams extending inwards for about twenty 
feet, as though at one time there had been rafters to divide 
the cave into two storeys, but of such rafters none remained. 
The back of the cave was occupied by a gleaming white 
stalagmitic column that certainly from below bore some 
resemblance to a human figure, but the floor of the cavern 
was so deep in birds' nests, and droppings of bats, leaves 
and branches, that it was not possible at the time to explore 
it. This, however, was done by M. Martel in 1905, but 
nothing of archaeological interest was found. However, he 
noticed a sort of ascending chimney that extended too far 
to be illumined to its extremity by the magnesium wire, 
and he conjectured that it extended to the surface of the 
rock above, where was the original entrance, now choked 
with earth and stone. 

But an investigation by M. A. Vire has solved the 
mystery of how access was obtained to this refuge. The 
beams visible from below are, as already said, two in number. 
The upper and largest is square, and measures seven by 
eight inches. The lower is nearly round and is four inches 
in diameter, and shows distinct traces of having been fretted 
by a rope having passed over it. It must have been used 
for the drawing up of food or other objects likely to excite 
the cupidity of robbers and routiers. The number of notches 
for beams of a floor in the sides of the cave is remarkable, 
but no floor can have been erected there, otherwise it would 
not have rotted away, whilst the two cross-beams at the 
entrance remain sound. The chimney supposed by Martel 
to communicate with the surface does not do so. Spade 
work at the foot of the rock revealed the manner in which 

108 



CLIFF REFUGES 

the cavern had been reached. A tradition existed in the 
Vers valley that at one time there had been a tower at 
the foot of the rock, and old men remembered the removal 
of some of its ruins for the construction of a mill. By 
digging, the foundations of the tower were disclosed. It 
had been square and measured 44 feet on each side. It 
had stood about 60 feet high, and had been topped with 
a lean-to tiled roof resting against the uppermost beam in 
the cave and thereby masking it.^ 

A somewhat similar cave is that of Boundoulaou in the 
Causse de Larzac (Lozere). Although this has an opening 
in the face of the precipice, which is partly walled up, it 
can be entered from another and more accessible cave. At 
a considerably lower level flows a stream that at one time 
issued from it, but has worked its way downwards, and now 
gushes forth many feet below. However, apparently in 
times of heavy rain, the overflow did burst forth from the 
upper cavern, for in it were found the skeletons of a whole 
family that had perished on one such occasion. 

At nearly 180 feet up the face of a sheer perpendicular 
cliff" near Milan is the cave of Riou Ferrand, 45 feet below 
the brow of the precipice. The mouth of the grotto is 
partly blocked by a well-constructed wall. It has been 
entered from above and explored. It yields delicately fine 
pottery and a spindle-whorl, so that a woman must have 
taken refuge here, and here sat spinning and looking down 
from this dizzy height on the ruffians ravaging the valley 
below and setting fire to her house. Bones of sheep and 
pigs in the cave showed that it, had been tenanted for some 
time, and tiles of distinctly Roman character indicated the 
period of its occupation. The only possible means of entering 
this cavern is, and was, by a rope or a ladder from above,^ 

^ " Le Eoc d'Aucour," in Bulletin de la Soc. des Antiquaires de Quercy, 
Cahors, 1901, t. xxvi. 

2 Martel, Lei Abimes, Paris, 1894. 

109 



CLIFF REFUGES 

I was in the valley of the Cele in 1892 with my friend 
M. Raymond Pons, a daring explorer of avens and caves. 
There was one cavern in a precipice on the left bank near 
Brengues that showed tokens of having been a refuge, 
from having a pole across the entrance. M. Pons obtained 
a stout rope, and the assistance of half-a-dozen peasants, 
and was let down over the brink, and by swinging suc- 
ceeded in obtaining a foothold within. He there found 
evident traces of former occupation. But how was it 
entered and left in ancient times.? From below it was 
quite inaccessible, and from above only by the means he 
employed — a rope. 

At Les Mees in the Basses- Alpes is a very similar cave, 
with two beams across fastened at the ends into the rock, 
which is a conglomerate, at the height of 350 feet, and 
quite inaccessible. They are mentioned by the historian 
Bartel in 1636 as inexplicable by him, and by the residents 
in the place. 

A not less perplexing rock shelter is that of Fadarelles 
in the Gorges of the Tarn. 

Of this M. Martel writes : " In a superb cliff of dolomitic 
limestone of the cirque of the Beaumes Chauds, M. FAbbe 
Solanet was good enough to conduct me beneath the Baume 
des Fadarelles, a chasm inaccessible, at the height of some- 
thing like 1770 feet in the face of the precipice, something 
like the openings of Boundoulaou, but much narrower. 

" In it one can see three coarse beams or rather trunks 
of trees from which the boughs have been cut away, each 
about 12 feet long. As this opening might well have been 
that of discharge of a stream, now choked, for the Baumes 
Chauds and its adjoining fissures, one is led at first to 
suppose that water had brought down these logs that had 
fallen into some pot-hole. But this hypothesis is untenable, 
for it can be seen that these poles have been artificially 
pointed at each end, and that they have been made firm by 

110 



CLIFF REFUGES 

cross pieces of metal, either bronze or iron. This may be 
the remains of a roof or a floor destined to supplement the 
insufficiency of the overhanging rock — and of the size of 
the fissure, so as to convert it into some sort of shelter. 
To study the matter, a ladder of nearly 50 feet would be 
needed (to be let down from above). In the absence of all 
tradition, these beams of Les Fadarelles remain a mystery. 
As the face of the cliff is absolutely smooth above the 
opening, below and on both sides, completely devoid of 
anything like a ledge by which access could be obtained to 
it, the question presents itself to one for the third time, as 
at Boundoulaou and at Riou Ferrand, were these cliiF- 
dwellers in the Gausses like those in the Canon of Colorado, 
or has the demolition of ledges by weather on these lime- 
stone cliffs proceeded with great rapidity ? " 

Two apparently inaccessible caves, that have been the 
habitation of man as a temporary refuge, and that have 
been explored by M. Philibert Lalande, show that there was 
a way in which some, though by no means all, were reached. 
The grottoes of Puy Labrousse near Brive, comprising five 
or six chambers, have isolated from the rest one that opens 
in the face of a sheer precipice at a considerable height 
above the valley. It can be entered only from behind, by a 
very small oval opening, preceded by a gallery very narrow, 
and masked at the entrance by enormous rocks, and which 
could be barricaded by stout beams, hollows for the recep- 
tion of which are visible. 

The other is at Soulier-de-Chasteaux on the Couze, an 
affluent of the Vezere. Here are two caverns excavated by 
the hand of man. The most curious is on the right bank 
near the top of a Jurassic cliff that is absolutely precipitous, 
and this also can be entered a retro. A narrow path leads 
to an opening very small, excavated in the vault of the 
cavern, through which a man could squeeze himself so as 
to descend into it by means of a ladder. The gaping mouth 

111 



CLIFF REFUGES 

of this grotto, which is from 15 to 18 feet square, is in part 
closed by a breastwork of stone. 

Below this cave is a very large shelter cut out square- 
headed in the cliff, but not deep ; and this is used by the 
peasants of Soulier as a place for stacking their hay. 
Square hollows wrought in the rock show that formerly 
some building was accommodated to it, and the roof ran 
back under it. In Auvergne are many soiderrains that 
have served as places of concealment in times of war. The 
Puy de Clierson occupies the centre of an area of four 
volcanoes. It is shaped like a bell, the slopes are covered 
with brushwood, and a ring of broken rocks forms the 
precipitous wall of the circular and flattish cap. The hill 
is composed of trachyte, and the upper portion is perforated 
in all directions by galleries and vaults that served formerly 
as a quarry for the extraction of stone of which the Romans 
formed their sarcophagi, in consequence of its powers of 
absorption of the moisture exuding from the bodies laid in 
their stone chests. The same may be said of Le Grand 
Sarcoui, shaped like a kettle turned bottom upwards. In 
some of the galleries are unfinished sarcophagi. But 
although originally quarries, they were used as refuges in 
later times. At Corent, on the Allier near Veyre-Mouton, 
are refuges in caves, so also at Blot-PEglise near Menat, 
which served the purpose during the troubles of the League. 

Meschers is a village in Charante Inferieure, lying in 
the lap of a chalk hill that extends to a bluff above the 
Gironde. This cliff is honeycombed with caves, excavated 
perhaps originally as quarries, but several certainly served 
as habitations ; the several chambers or dwellings are reached 
by a ledge running along the face of the cliff, but the 
chambers of each particular cave-house have doors of inter- 
communication cut through this rock. The Grottes de 
Meschers are said to have been used by the Huguenots 
at a time when it was perilous to assemble in a house for 

112 




: J2 43 



V V c 







O " rt g 

> 
< _ 



§11 



° v-5 
fo o 

- 2i C 



CLIFF REFUGES 

preaching or psalm-singing. But it is also quite possible 
that they served as refuges as well to the Catholics, when 
the Calvinists had the upper hand ; as, indeed, they had 
for long. Their attempts at proselytising was not with 
velvet gloves, but with fire-brand, sword, and the hang- 
man's rope. In that horrible period, exceeding far in bar- 
barity that of the routiers in the Hundred Years' War, 
it is hard to decide on which side the worst atrocities were 
committed. 

Later still, in the Reign of Terror, the grottoes may 
have harboured priests and nobles hiding for their lives. 
But now they shelter none but the peaceful dreamer, who 
sits there at eventide looking out over the yellow waters 
of the Gironde, ever agitated by the tide, at the setting 
sun that sends shafts of fire into these recesses — and sets 
him wishing that the light would reveal the details of tragic 
stories connected with these caves. 

In the department of Ariege are a vast number of natural 
caverns, many of which have served as places of retreat for 
the Albigenses. Between Tarascon and Cabannes are some 
that were defended by crenellated walls, and are supposed 
to date from the Wars of Religion, but probably go back 
beyond the time of the English occupation. It is also 
said that the Huguenots met in them for their assemblies. 
In the country they go by the name of gkizetos, or petites 
eglises. They are found on the left bank of the Ariege. 
In the fourth century the Priscillianist heretics expelled 
from Spain settled in the mountains on the north slope 
of the Pyrenees, and propagated their doctrines through- 
out the country and among the population more than 
half pagan, and this explains the spread c^ Albigensian 
Manichaeism later. In 407 the Vandals, Suevi and Alani, 
during three years in succession swept the country, com- 
mitting frightful ravages, as they passed on their way 
into Spain ; and no doubt can be entertained that at this 

113 H 



CLIFF REFUGES 

time the numerous grottoes were used by the natives as 
refuges. In 412 there was another influx of barbarians, 
this time Visigoths ; their king Walla made Toulouse his 
capital, and gave over two-thirds of the land to his followers. 
After the battle of Voulon, in 507, Clovis took possession 
of Toulouse. In 715 the Saracens poured through the 
gaps in the Pyrenees, occupied the basin of the Ariege, 
and destroyed the city of Couserans. In 731 more arrived 
in a veritable invasion of multitudes, and ravaged all the 
south of France. Again the caves served their end as 
places of hiding. The south of France, rich and dissolute, 
was steeped in heresy. This heresy was a compound of 
Priscillianism, the dualism of Manes, Oriental and Gnostic 
fancies, Gothic Arianism, and indigenous superstition, all 
fused together in what was known as Albigensianism, and 
which was hardly Christian even in name. The terrible and 
remorseless extermination of these unfortunate people, who 
knew no better, by order of Innocent III. and John XXIII., 
presents one of the most horrible passages in history. The 
country reeked with the smoke of pyres at which the 
heretics were burnt, and was drenched with their blood. 
In 1244 their last stronghold, the Montsegur, was taken, 
when two hundred of them were burnt alive. Only some 
few who had concealed themselves in the dens and caves 
of the earth survived this terrible time. The last heard 
of them is in 1328, when some of the proscribed took refuge 
in the grottoes of Lombrive, when 500 or 600 were walled 
in and starved to death, as already related. 

In Derbyshire are numerous caves — at Castleton, Brad- 
well Eyam, Matlock, and Buxton — but they are all natural, 
except such as are old mine-workings. 

Poole's Hole, the Buxton cavern, may be traced under- 
ground for the distance of something like half a mile. 
It is now lighted with gas, its inner ways have been made 
smooth, and it is even possible for invalids in bath-chairs 

114 



CLIFF REFUGES 

to enter. But it was at one time the haunt of an outlaw 
named Poole, in the reign of Henry IV., who made it his 
home, and here accumulated his stores. But it was inhabited 
long before his time, and proves to have been a prehistoric 
dwelling-place, and was later occupied by the Romans. 

Reynard's Cave is high up on the Derbyshire side of 
Dove Dale, and the way to it is steep and dangerous. It 
is approached through a natural archway in a sheer cliff of 
limestone, about SO feet wide and twice as high, beyond 
which a difficult pathway gives access to the cave itself. 
Near it is a smaller cavity, called Reynard's Kitchen. This 
cavern has undoubtedly served as a shelter, it is said, to 
persecuted Royalists. Here it was that the Dean of Clogher, 
Mr. Langton, lost his life a century ago. He foolishly tried 
to ride his horse up the steep side of the Dale to the cave, 
and carry a young lady. Miss La Roche, behind him. The 
horse lost its foothold among the loose stones, and the rash 
equestrian fell. The Dean died two days afterwards, but 
the young lady recovered, saved by her hair having caught 
in the thorns of a bramble bush. High up, among the 
rocks on the Staffordshire side in a most secluded spot, is a 
cleft called Cotton's Cave, which extends something like 
40 feet within the rock. Here it was that Charles Cotton, 
the careless, impecunious poet, the friend of Isaac Walton, 
was wont to conceal himself from his creditors. On the top 
of Lovers' Leap, a sheer precipice, is what was once a garden 
where the two anglers sat and smoked their pipes. Close by 
is an ancient watch-tower, from which was seen Cotton's wife's 
beacon-fire lit to announce to him that the coast was clear of 
duns, and to light him home in the black nights of winter. 

Thor's Cave is in a lofty rock on the Manifold River. 
The cliff rises to an altitude of four or five hundred feet, 
terminating in a bold and lofty peak ; and the cave is 
situated about half-way up the face of the precipice. The 
cave is arched at the entrance, a black yawning mouth in 

115 



CLIFF REFUGES 

the white face of the limestone. It is a natural phenomenon, 
but appears to have been enlarged by cave-dwellers. It has 
been explored by a local antiquary, and has yielded evidence 
of having been inhabited from prehistoric times. 

The name of Thor's Cavern carries us back to the time 
when the Norsemen occupied Deira and Derbyshire, and 
Jordas Cave in Yorkshire does the same — for the name 
signifies ^n Earth-Giant. 

In the crevices of Bottor Rock in Hennock, Devon, John 
Cann, a Royalist, found refuge. He had made himself 
peculiarly obnoxious to the Roundheads at Bovey Tracey, 
and here he lay concealed, and provisions were secretly con- 
veyed to him. Here also he hid his treasure. A path is 
pointed out, trodden by him at night as he paced to and 
fro. He was at last tracked by bloodhounds to his hiding- 
place, seized, carried to Exeter and hanged. His treasure 
has never been recovered, and his spirit still walks the rocks. 

At Sheep^s Tor, where is now the reservoir of the Ply- 
mouth waterworks, may be seen by the side of the sheet 
of water the ruins of the ancient mansion of the Elfords. 
The Tor of granite towers above the village. Among the 
rocks near the summit is a cave in which an old Squire 
Elford was concealed when the Parliamentary troopers 
were in search of him. Pol wheel in his "Devon" mentions 
it. " Here, I am informed, Elford used to hide himself 
from the search of Cromwell's party, to whom he was ob- 
noxious. Hence he could command the whole country, and 
having some talent for painting, he amused himself with 
that art on the walls of his cavern, which I have been told 
by an elderly gentleman who had visited the place was very 
fresh in his time.'' None of the paintings now remain on 
the sides of the rock. 

The cave is formed by two slabs of granite resting against 
each other. It is only about 6 feet long, 4» wide, and 5 feet 
high, and is entered by a very narrow opening. 

116 



CHAPTER V 

CLIFF CASTLES. THE ROUTIERS 

FROM a very early period in the Middle Ages — in fact 
from the dissolution of the Carlovingian dynasty — 
we find communities everywhere grouped about a 
centre, and that centre the residence of the feudal chief to 
whom the members of the community owed allegiance and 
paid certain dues, in exchange for which he undertook to 
protect his vassals from robbery and outrage. By the Edict 
of Mersen, in 847, every freeman was suffered to choose his 
own lord, whether the King or one of his vassals, and no 
vassal of the King was required to follow him in war, unless 
against a foreign enemy. Consequently the subjects were 
able to make merchandise of their obedience. In civil 
broils the King was disarmed, helpless ; and as he was 
incapable of defending the weak against their oppressors, 
the feeble banded themselves under any lord who could 
assure them of protection. The sole token that the great 
nobles showed of vassalage to the Crown was that they 
dated their charters by the year of the Sovereign's reign. 

As the security of the community depended on the 
security of the seigneur, it behoved that his residence should 
be made inexpugnable. To this end, where possible, a pro- 
jecting tongue of land or an isolated hill was selected and 
rendered secure by cutting through any neck that connected 
it with other high ground, or by carving the sides into 
precipices. Like a race of eagles, these lords dwelt on the 
top of the rocks, and their vassals crouched at their feet. 

But although the dues paid to a seigneur were fixed by 

117 



CLIFF CASTLES 

custom, it not infrequently happened that the receipts were 
inadequate to his wants. He had to maintain armed men 
to guard his castle and his tenants, and these armed men 
had to be paid and kept in good humour. The lord accord- 
ingly was disposed to increase the burdens laid on his serfs, 
and that to such an extent as to drive them into revolt. 
He on his part was not unaware of the fact that he held 
a wolf by the ears, and his impregnable position was 
chosen not solely as a defence against foreign enemies, but 
also against his rebellious vassals. 

The village of Les Eyzies is dominated by the ruins of 
a castle of the tenth or eleventh century, that was restored 
in the fifteenth, when a graceful turret was added. The 
keep is planted on a precipitous rock, and rises to the over- 
hanging roof of chalk that is pierced with rafter-holes for 
the reception of roof beams, and with openings only to be 
reached by ladders leading to caves that served as store- 
houses. At the junction of the Beune with the Vezere, 
a little further down is a rock standing by itself, shaped 
like a gigantic fungus. This is called the Roche de la 
Peine, as from the top of it the Sieur de Beynac, who was 
also lord of Les Eyzies, precipitated malefactors. But under 
that designation he was disposed to reckon all such as in 
any way offended him. In 1594 the Sieur, to punish two of 
his peasant vassals who had committed a trifling offence, 
killed one, and dragged the other over stones, attached to 
the tail of his horse. This act of barbarity roused public 
indignation, and a deputation waited on the seneschal of 
Perigord to demand retribution. But having received no 
satisfaction from this officer, in 1595, the peasants took the 
matter into their own hands, revolted and besieged the 
castle. As they failed to take it, they turned on the 
property of the seigneur, tore up his vines, cut down his 
woods, and burnt his granges. 

The incessant wars that swept France, its dismemberment 

118 



CLIFF CASTLES 

into duchies and counties and seigneuries, practically inde- 
pendent, and above all the English domination in Guyenne for 
three hundred years, enabled the petty nobles to shake off the 
very semblance of submission to their liege lords, and to prose- 
cute their private feuds without hindrance. After Poitiers, 
1356, and the captivity of King John, anarchy reigned in 
the land ; bands of plunderers ranged to and fro, threaten- 
ing persons and ravaging lands ; and the magistrates could 
not, or would not, exercise their authority. Local quarrels 
among rival landowners, the turbulent and brutal passions 
of the castle-holders, filled the land with violence and spread 
universal misery, from which there seemed to be no escape, 
as against the wrongdoers there was no redress. After the 
Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, Aquitaine ceased to be a French 
fief, and was exalted in the interests of the King of 
England into an independent sovereignty, together with 
the provinces of Poitou, the Saintonge, Aunis, Agenois, 
Perigord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, Angoumois and 
Rouergue, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the people, who 
remonstrated against being handed over to a foreign lord. 
Charles V. and Charles VII. sought on every available 
occasion to escape from its obligations, and the towns were 
in periodic revolt. William de Nangis says of the condition 
of the country under Charles V. : " There was not in Anjou, 
in Touraine, in Beauce, in Orleans, and up to the very 
approaches of Paris, any corner of the country that was free 
from plunderers. They were so numerous everywhere, either 
in little castles occupied by them, or in villages and the 
countryside, that peasants and tradesmen could not travel 
except at great expense and in mighty peril. The very 
guards told off to protect the cultivators of the soil and the 
travellers on the highways, most shamefully took part in 
harassing and despoiling them. It was the same in 
Burgundy and the neighbouring countries. Some knights 
who called themselves friends of the King, whose names I 

119 



CLIFF CASTLES 

am not minded to set down here, kept brigands in their 
service, who were every whit as bad. What is more strange 
is that, when these ruffians went into the cities, Paris, or 
anywhere else, everybody knew them and pointed them out, 
but none durst lay hands on them."" . 

The condition of Germany was but little superior to 
that of France. The central authority, if that can be 
called central which was always shifting its position, was 
unequal to restrain the violent. Its pretensions were in 
inverse proportion to its efficiency. The Emperor was 
too far off to see to the policing of the Empire, too weak 
to enforce order ; and his long absences in Italy left the 
German lords and lordlings to pursue their own courses 
unrestrained. When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa 
visited the Baron van Kingen in his castle near Constance, 
the freiherr received him seated, because, as he said, he 
held his lands in fee of none but the sun. Although he 
was willing to receive the Emperor as a guest, he refused 
to acknowledge him as his lord. If this was the temper 
of the petty nobility in a green tree, what must it have 
been in the dry. After that the great houses of Saxony 
and Swabia had been crushed out by the policy of the 
Papacy, it was to the interest of the electors to keep the 
Emperor weak ; and the fact that the Imperial Crown was 
elective enabled the electors to sell their votes for extended 
privileges. At last, against the raids of the petty nobles, 
whom the Emperor could not control, the cities leagued 
together, took the matter in hand, attacked the fortresses, 
levelled them and gave to the inmates short shrift, a halter 
and a tree. In Italy the towns proceeded in a less sum- 
mary manner. Surrounded as they were on all sides by a 
serried rank of castles, where the nobles held undisputed 
sway over their serfs and controlled the arteries of trade, 
the cities were compelled to proceed against them; but 
instead of sending them to the gallows, they contented 

120 



CLIFF CASTLES 

themselves with forcing them to take up their residence 
within the town walls. But though the feudal lordship 
of these nobles had been destroyed, their opulence, their 
lands, the prestige of their names remained untouched, 
and in place of disturbing the roads they filled the streets 
with riot. They reared in the towns those wonderful 
towers that we still see at Bologna, San Gemigniano, 
Savona, &c. " From the eighth to the thirteenth century," 
says Ruskin, " there was little change in the form ; — four- 
square, rising high and without tapering into the air, 
storey above storey, they stood like giants beside the piles of 
the basilicas and the Lombardic churches . . . their ruins 
still frown along the crests of every promontory of the 
Apeninnes, and are seen from far away in the great Lom- 
bard plain, from distances of half a day''s journey, dark 
against the amber sky of the horizon." ^ 

I propose dividing my subject of cliff castles into four 
heads : — 

1. Those that were seigneural strongholds. 

2. Those that with castle and town occupied a rock. 

3. The fastnesses of the routiers, the Companies in 

the Hundred Years' War. 

4. Outpost stations guarding fords, roads into a town, 

and passes into a country. 

And I shall begin with No. 3— The Castles of the 
routiers. 

The face of a country is like that of a woman. It tells 

the story of its past. The many-windowed English mansion 

sleeping among turfy lawns to the plash of a fountain, 

and the cawing of rooks in the beech wood, tell of a tranquil 

past life-record broken only by transient unrest; whereas 

the towers on the Continent with their meurtrieres and 

frowning machicolations, bristling on every hill, frequent 

as church spires, now gutted and ruinous, proclaim a 

^ Lectures on Architecture, 1853. 
121 



CLIFF CASTLES 

protracted reign of oppression and then a sudden upheaval 
in resentment and a firebrand applied to them all. The 
old English mansion has its cellars, but never an oubliette, 
its porch-door always open to welcome a neighbour and to 
relieve the indigent. It was not insulated by a dyke, 
and its doors clenched with a portcullis. The spoils of 
the chase were not a drove of " lifted " cattle taken from 
a peasant left stark upon his threshold, but foxes' masks 
and the antlers of deer. The pigeons coo about the 
English gables and the peacock dreams in the sun on 
the balustrade of the terrace, as in past centuries, but 
the castle of the French noble and the burg of the German 
ritter are given over to the bats and owls, and are quarries 
whence the peasants pick out the heraldic carvings for 
the construction of their pig-styes. 

Nowhere did tears so stain and furrow the face of the land 
as in that portion of France that was ceded to England. 
De Quincey says : " Within fifty years in three pitched 
battles that resounded to the ends of the earth, the chivalry 
of France had been exterminated. Her oriflamme had been 
dragged through the dust. The Eldest Son of Baptism had 
been prostrated. The daughter of France had been sur- 
rendered on coercion as a bride to her English conqueror. 
The child of that marriage, so ignominious to the land, was 
King of France by the consent of Christendom ; that child's 
uncle domineered as regent of France ; and that child's 
armies were in military possession of the land. But were 
they undisputed masters ? No ! — under a perfect conquest 
there would have been repose ; whereas the presence of the 
English armies did but furnish a plea, making strong in 
patriotism, for gathering everywhere of lawless marauders, 
of soldiers that had deserted their banners, and of robbers 
by profession. This was the woe of France more even than 
the military dishonour." ^ 

^ Essay on Charles Lamb. 
122 



CLIFF CASTLES 

The Hundred Years' War, that has left ineffaceable traces 
in the south of France, began in 1S36 before the conclusion 
of the Treaty of Bretigny, which was in 1360, and it lasted 
till 1443 — over a century, though not without interruption ; 
and it desolated the fields of Perigord, Quercy, and to a less 
degree Rouergue and the Limousin, and wrought havoc to 
the gates of Paris. 

The close of the fourteenth century saw no hope anywhere, 
only gathering storms. In France, to the prudent Charles V. 
succeeded the mad fool Charles VI. In England the strong 
King Edward III. was followed by the incompetent Richard 
II. In Germany the Emperor Charles IV., a statesman, 
had as his successor the drunken sot Wenceslas. In England 
the Wars of the Roses were looming in the future. Agin- 
court proved more disastrous to England than to France. 
There was hopeless turmoil everywhere. As Luther said 
when a somewhat similar condition existed in Germany — 
" God, tiring of the game, has thrown the cards on the 
table.'' In France the free Companies ran riot unrestrained. 
About them one word. 

The engagement of mercenaries in the war between 
England and France had begun early. As Michelet says : 
" The population of the North saw appear among them 
mercenary soldiers, the routiei^s^ for the most part in the 
service of England. Some came from Brabant, some from 
Aquitaine; the Basque Marcader was one of the principal 
lieutenants of Richard Cceur- de-lion. The mountaineers 
of the South, who to-day descend into France and Spain to 
ain a little money by huxtering, did so in the Middle Ages, 
ut then, their sole industry was war. They maltreated 
priests as they did peasants, dressed their wives in conse- 
crated vestments, beat the clergy, and made them sing mass 
in mockery. It was also one of their amusements to defile 
and break the images of Christ, to smash the legs and arms, 
treating Him worse than did the Jews. These routiers were 

123 



CLIFF CASTLES 

dear to the princes precisely on account of their impiety, 
which rendered them insensible to ecclesiastical censures."^ 

From 1204 to 1222 was the period of the Crusade against 
the Albigenses. Pope Innocent III. poured over that beau- 
tiful land in the south of France — beautiful as the Garden of 
God — a horde of ruffians, made up of the riffraff of Europe, 
summoned to murder, pillage and outrage, with the promise 
of Heaven as their reward. After committing atrocities 
such as people Hell, these scoundrels, despising the religion 
they had been summoned to defend, with every spark of 
humanity extinguished in their breasts, looked about for 
fresh mischief, and found it, by enrolling themselves under 
the banner of England ; their tiger cubs grew up with the 
lust of blood and rapine that had possessed their fathers. 
Generation after generation of these fiends in human form 
ranged over the soil of France committing intolerable havoc. 
A carpenter of Le Puy formed an association for the ex- 
termination of these bands. Philip Augustus encouraged 
him", furnished troops, and in one day slaughtered ten 
thousand of them. But so long as the English claim on so 
large a portion of the soil of France was maintained, the 
bands were incessantly recruited. The French King hired 
them as well as the King of England. So, later, did the 
Popes, when they quitted Avignon, and by their aid 
recovered the patrimony of S. Peter. 

The barons and seigneurs in the South were no better 

than the routiej^s. They transferred their allegiance from 

the Leopards to the Lilies, or vice versd, as suited their 

caprices. The Sieur de Pons went over to the side of 

France because he quarrelled with his wife, who was ardent 

on the English side. The local nobility helped the routiers, 

and the routiers assisted them in their private feuds. 

1 Histoire de France, ii. p. 362. The first to introduce them was Henry 
Courtmantel when he rebelled against his father. On his death in 1163 
they disbanded, and then reunited under elected captains, and pillaged 
the country. 

124 



CLIFF CASTLES 

The knights of the fourteenth century were no longer the 
protectors of the weak, the redressers of wrongs, loyal to 
their liege lords, observers of their oaths. They had re- 
versed the laws of chivalry. Their main function was the 
oppression of the weak. They forswore themselves without 
scruple. The Sire d'Aubrecicourt plundered and slaughtered 
at random pour meriter de sa dame, Isabella de Juliers, niece 
of the Queen of England, "for he was young and out- 
rageously in love." The brother of the King of Navarre 
plundered like the rest. When the nobles sold safe-conducts 
to the merchants who victualled the towns, they excepted 
such articles as might suit themselves — silks, harness, plate. 
A prince of the blood sent as hostage to England returned 
to France in defiance of treaties, and if King John sur- 
rendered himself, it was because of the ease and pleasures he 
enjoyed in London, and to be rid of cares. The name given 
to the Companies in the South was Raobadous (Ribauds) 
— the very name has come to us under the form of ribald, 
as indicative of all that is brutal, profane, and unseemly. 

Among the commanders very few were English. There 
was the Welshman Griffith, whom Froissart calls Ruffin, 
who ravaged the country between the Seine and the Loire. 
Sir Robert Knollys, or Knolles, led a band of English and 
Navarrese, " conquering every town and castle he came to. 
He had followed this trade for some time, and by it gained 
upwards of 100,000 crowns. He kept a great many soldiers 
in his pay; and being very liberal, was cheerfully obeyed."" 
So says Froissart. Sir Robert Cheney was another ; so was 
Sir John Amery. Sir John Hawkwood was taken into the 
service of Pope Gregory XI., and sent to ravage in Italy. 
Bacon, a notorious brigand, may or may not have been 
English. The name is common in lower Brittany. " This 
robber," says Froissart, " was always mounted on handsome 
horses of a deep roan colour, apparelled like an earl, and 
very richly armed." 

125 



CLIFF CASTLES 

But usually the free Companies enrolled themselves under 
some bastard (Bourg) of a noble house in France or 
Guyenne. It was a bastard warfare on their side; they 
stood in the same relation to the regular forces that 
privateers do to a fleet of the Royal Navy. They paid no 
regard to treaties. As the Bourg d'Espaign told Froissart : 
" The treaty of peace being concluded, it was necessary for 
all men-at-arms and free Companies, according to the treaty, 
to evacuate the fortresses and castles they held. Great 
numbers collected together, with many poor companions 
who had learnt the art of war under different commanders, 
to hold councils as to what quarters they should march, 
and they said among themselves that, though the kings 
had made peace with each other, it was necessary for them 
to live. They marched into Burgundy, where they had 
captains of all nations — Germans, Scots, and people from 
every country — 'and they agreed to disregard the treaty 
and to surprise towns and castles as before.' A notorious 
Breton captain on his deathbed said : ' Such has been my 
manner of carrying on war, in truth, I cared not against 
whom. I did indeed make it under shadow of the King 
of England's name, in preference to any other; but I 
always looked for gain and conquest, wherever it was to 
be had.'" 

When they captured a town or castle, nominally for the 
English, they were quite ready to sell it to the French for 
a stipulated sum. 

Froissart says that the Ribands were " Germans, Braban- 
tines, Flemings, Gascons, and bad Frenchmen, who had 
been impoverished by the war" (i. c. 204). He gives in 
one place the names of twenty of these captains, not one 
English.^ In another place he enumerates ten, all French 
or Gascons (ii. c. 10). Among those who harassed the 

1 Robert King of Puy Guihhem was an Englishman, but an authorised 
governor and commander under the English crown. 

126 



CLIFF CASTLES 

Languedoc, Quercy and Perigord, not a single captain was 
English. The Bastard de Beby, the Bastard d'Albret, 
Amadeu de Pons, Benezet Daguda, De TEsparre, Menard 
de Favas, FArchipretre, Bertrand de la Salle, Le Non de 
Mauroux, Jean FEsclop, Nolibarba, Bertrand de Besserat, 
Perrot de Savoie, Ramonet del Sort, and a score more, all 
base French or Gascon names. "These brigands," says 
Lacoste, " were mainly composed of French soldiers to 
whom the State had been unable to pay their wages." 
One whole company was entitled that "des Bretons." 

But it was not the captains of the Companies alone who 
were Gascons, French, and Bretons. The nobles throughout 
Guyenne were more than half of them on the English side. 
The famous commander who did so much towards achieving 
the victory of Poitiers was a Frenchman, the Captal de 
Buch, Jean de Greuilly, Constable of Aquitaine for the 
English crown. Amandeu and Raymond de Montaut, the 
Sire de Duras, Petiton de Courton, Jean de Seignol, the 
Sire de Mussidan, and many more. "Following their 
interests or their passions, all these nobles passed from 
side to side, now that of the English, then that of the 
French ; but they preferred the English side to the other, 
for war against the French is more pleasant than that 
against the English," — that is to say, it was more profitable. 
The Livre de Vie of Bergerac under the date 5th April 
1381, speaks of Perducat d'Albret as "loyally French." 
But his loyalty lasted but for a moment. Froissart has a 
characteristic passage upon the Gascons that deserves quota- 
tion. After giving a list of towns and castles on the 
Garonne and the Dordogne, he says : " Some of these being 
English, and others French, carried on a war against each 
other ; they would have it so, for the Gascons were never, 
for thirty years running, steadily attached to any one lord. 
I once heard the Lord d'Albret use an expression that I 
noted down. A knight from Brittany inquired after his 

127 



CLIFF CASTLES 

health, and how he managed to remain steady to the 
French. He answered, * Thank God my health is good, 
but I had more money at command, as well as my people, 
when I made war for the King of England, than I have 
now; for, whenever we took any excursions in search of 
adventures, we never failed meeting some rich merchants 
from Toulouse, Condom, La Reole, or Bergerac, whom we 
squeezed, which made us gay and debonair, but now all 
that is at an end.' On hearing this I concluded that the 
Lord d'Albret repented having turned to the French in 
the same manner as the Lord of Mucidens, who swore to 
the Duke of Anjou he would set out for Paris and become 
a good Frenchman. He did go to Paris, when the King 
handsomely received him ; but he slunk away and returned 
to his own country, where he again became an Englishman, 
and broke all his engagements with the Duke of Anjou. 
The Lords of Rosem, Duras, Langurant, did the same'' 
(iii. c. 21). 

As with the captains of the Companies, so with the 
knights and seigneurs who fought in the South for the 
Crown of England — their names are for the most part 
French and Gascon, and not English.^ 

The Companies formed their nests in the rocks, which 
they fortified, or in castles they had captured, or in such 
as had been abandoned by the French, from inability to 
garrison them. The Causse was in their possession from 

^ Let it not be forgotten that those who condemned Joan of Arc to be 
burnt were Frenchmen. The University of Paris denounced her as a 
heretic. Her judges were the Bishop of Beauvais, a Frenchman by birth, 
Jean Graveraut, Professor of Theology at the University of Paris, Grand 
Inquisitor of France, Jean Lemaitre, prior of the Dominicans at Kouen, 
Her bitterest accuser was the Canon Jean d'Estivet, general procurator, 
who after the execution drowned himself in a pool. The Bastard of 
Vendome sold her to John of Luxembourg, and John of Luxembourg 
sold her to the English for 10,000 francs. Charles VII. and his friends 
did not raise a finger in her behalf. They forgot her at once, as a thing 
that had answered its purpose and was no longer of use. 

128 



CLIFF CASTLES 

the Dordogne to the Lot, and Perigord to the gates of the 
capital. They overran Auvergne, the Gevaudan, Poitou, 
the Angoumois, the Rouergue and the Saintonge, to speak 
only of provinces south of the Loire. The Government 
exhibited incredible feebleness towards them. In 1379 the 
Count d'Armagnac, Royal Lieutenant in the south, paid 
24,000 francs to one of the routiers to evacuate the castle 
of Carlat, and 12,500 to the Bastard of Albret for five 
others. In 1387 he convened an assembly of the States of 
Auvergne, Velay, Gevaudan, Rouergue, Quercy, &c., to 
debate what was to be done to rid the country of these 
pests. Instead of resolving on an united effort to put them 
down by force of arms, they agreed to pay them 250,000 
francs to quit. They took the money, but remained. Every 
town, every village was forced to come to terms with the 
brigands, by means of a patis or convention to pay a certain 
sum annually, to save it from pillage. Should the covenanted 
money not be forthcoming to the day, the place was sacked 
and burnt. 

At length the inhabitants, unable to endure the exac- 
tion of the routiers on one side and those of the King and 
the seigneurs on the other, migrated to Spain and never 
returned. In 1415, as all the inhabitants of Caudon had 
crossed the frontier, the cure applied to have his cure 
united to that of Domme. He had no parishioners left. 
Domme had been reduced from a thousand families to a 
hundred and twenty, and these would have abandoned their 
homes unless stopped by the Seneschal of Perigord. 

In 1434 the inhabitants of Temniac and Carlux began to 
pack their goods for leaving, but the citizens of Sarlat 
stopped them, by promising to feed them till the conclusion 
of the war. Some of the large towns had lost so many of 
their citizens that they were glad to receive peasants out 
of the country and enrol them as burgesses. In 1378, as 
the Causse of Quercy was almost denuded of its population 

129 I 



CLIFF CASTLES 

and nothing remained to be reaped, the Companies abandoned 
it for the Rouergue, the Gevaudan and the Limousin and 
Upper Auvergne. Thence the wretched peasants fled to 
the deserted limestone Causse of Quercy and occupied the 
abandoned villages and farms. They obtained but a short 
respite, for in 1407 the Companies returned to their former 
quarters. Charles VI. imposed a heavy tax on the whole 
kingdom to enable him to carry on the war against the 
English. But Quercy was wholly unable to meet the 
demands, and the King, in a letter dated the last day of 
February 1415, gives a graphic account of the condition 
to which the land had been reduced. 

" Whereas, this land, at the time when it passed under 
the obedience of the King of England, was the richest and 
most populous in all the Duchy of Guyenne, and contained 
the finest cities, towns, and castles and fortresses in the said 
duchy, which were free and quit of all taxes and imposts, 
and with privileges conferred on them and confirmed by the 
King of France when they shook off the English yoke; 
and the said land of Quercy, after having returned to its 
legitimate sovereigns, has testified to them the greatest 
loyalty; yet have its inhabitants been grievously injured, 
assailed, beaten, robbed, pillaged, imprisoned, killed, mal- 
treated by the English in divers ways, which enemies have 
since taken and occupied the greater part of the finest 
towns and fortresses of the land; on which account the 
land of Quercy has since continued in a condition of mortal 
warfare with the said enemies for the space of fifty-five 
years; and this carried on without aid from us, or from 
any one : — This unfortunate land has resisted to the utmost 
of its powers and is doing so still ; and it has been sur- 
rounded for long by our said enemies, and is as it were 
destroyed and uninhabitable, and the greater number of its 
towns, castles, and strongholds have become desert and wild, 
covered with forest and scrub, inhabited by wild beasts, 

130 




Le Defile des Anglais, Lot. 



A fortress of the English commanding the road to Cahors. Several chambers 
are excavated out of the rock. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

with the exception of some few small places that are very 
poor and miserable, and though at one time they were great 
and rich, they have been to such an extent depopulated — 
partly through the war and partly through pestilences that 
have ensued — there are now hardly one hundredth part of 
the people remaining, and those who do remain are but 
poor labourers and men of servile class ; and these are kept 
night and day harassed by watching against enemies, and 
yet are compelled to buy them off with patis and pensions, 
so that the greater portion of their substance is consumed 
in this way ; — therefore, &c/' 

In 1450 the English were driven out of Guyenne, but a 
fresh attempt to recover it was made, that ended in the 
defeat and death of Talbot, in 1453. The Companies had 
then to dissolve. Out of a thousand churches in Quercy but 
four hundred were in condition for the celebration of divine 
service; many had been converted into fortresses. Most 
of the little towns in Upper Quercy had lost the major 
portion of their inhabitants ; the villages were void of 
inhabitants. None knew who were the heirs to the deserted 
houses and untilled fields.^ An emigration from Limousin 
and the Rouergue was called for to repeople the waste places. 
Grammat, that had been a thriving town, in 1460 was left 
with only five inhabitants, Lavergne with but three. Lhern, 
once a flourishing place, was absolutely desert, the fields 
covered with briars and thorns, not one house tenanted, and 
in the church a she-wolf had littered her cubs. 

Throughout the country can be distinguished the churches 
built when the war was over — quadrangular structures, 
without ornament. 

Two of the strongest fortresses held by the English in 

^ " Agros atque Lares proprios, habitandaque fana 
Apres reliquit, et rapacibus lupis, 
Ire, pedes quocunque ferent." 

—Horace, Epod. Od., 16. 
131 



CLIFF CASTLES 

Perigord were Bigaroque and the Roc de Tayac. The 
former belonged to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, staunch in 
his adhesion to the English cause, and he placed a garrison 
in it. The French did noti attempt a siege, but in 1376 
they raised a large sum in the neighbourhood and bought 
the garrison out. Either they culpably neglected to place 
troops in it, or were too weak to do so, and in 1386 the 
English reoccupied it without a blow, and made it a centre 
whence they pillaged the country up to 1408. In 1409 the 
Constable of France, however, laid siege to it and the garri- 
son capitulated, on condition that all prisoners taken by the 
French should be set free. The French then demolished the 
fortifications, but did this so inefficiently that in 1432 the 
English had again established themselves therein. It was 
not recovered by the French till 1443 ; somewhat latir the 
Companies disbanded, and then they so completely destroyed 
the fortress that of it nothing now remains. 

The other stronghold was the Rock of Tayac. The 
white cliff streaked with black tears rises to the height of 
300 feet, and is precipitous. Throughout the whole length 
it is lined and notched and perforated, showing tokens of 
having been a combination of cliff caves, and wooden galleries, 
connecting the caves, as also of structures at the base of the 
crag. These latter have disappeared, having been torn down 
when the castle was demolished, but the indications of the 
roofs remain. There were several storeys in the fortress. In 
one cave is a stable reached by a ladder, also a well that was 
driven from an upper cavern through the roof of the stable 
and through its floor to the level of the river. The oven of 
these freebooters hanging in mid-cliff remains, guard-rooms 
are still extant, and theiprincipal upper storey is now turned 
into a hotel, as already mentioned, but in so doing the stable 
has been injured and the well filled up. The hotel is 
reached by a ladder. 

From this vultures' nest the Ribands devastated the 

132 




Interior of the Chateau du Diable, Cabrerets 

The rock is on one side, the wall edging the precipice is on the other. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

neighbourhood and the Sieur des Eyzies on the opposite 
side of the river, and who was on the French side, was 
powerless against them. In company with the garrison 
of Bigaroque they surprised Temniac near Sarlat, S. 
Quentin and Campagnac, in 1348, but were shortly after 
dislodged by the Seneschal of Perigord from these acqui- 
sitions. 

In 1353 they surprised the church and fortress of Tursac 
and the castle of Palevez. The men of Sarlat hastened to 
recover Tursac, bringing with them some machines of war, 
named La Bride, Le Hop, Le Collard, and FAsne, that 
flung stones and bolts and pots of flaming tar and sulphur. 
They managed to drive the English out of Tursac, but were 
unable to recover the other castle. 

In 1401, at the solicitation of the Baron of Limeuil, they 
took and utterly destroyed the town and castle of La Roche 
Christophe, as shall be related in full in the sequel. On 
4th December 1409, the Constable of France having ruined 
Bigaroque, besieged the Rock of Tayac, and it was taken after 
a gallant defence on 10th January 1410, demolished and 
reduced to the condition in which we see it now. Then 
a tax was levied throughout Perigord to pay for the cost 
of the sieges of Bigaroque and the Rock of Tayac. 

We will now pass from Perigord to Quercy. Here the 
English Companies held the valley of the Lot from below 
Capdenac to the gates of Cahors, except the impregnable 
towns of Cajarc and Calvignac. 

Flowing into the Lot at Conduche is the river Cele that 
descends from Figeac. This river was also in the grip of 
the English. 

Below Figeac the limestone precipices first appear at 
Corn, and the cliff is full of caves in which there are remains 
of fortifications. The cliff is not beautiful, but is wondrous 
strange, white, draped with fallen folds of stalactite, black 
as ink, as though a tattered funeral pall had been cast over 

133 



CLIFF CASTLES 

it. Corn was a feof of the family of Beduer, one of the five 
most powerful in Quercy. In 1379 Perducat, the Bastard 
of Albret, an English Captain, occupied Corn, but sold it 
to John, Count of Armagnac, Seneschal of Quercy; after 
having marched out and pocketed his money, he turned 
round, marched in again, and set to work to fortify the 
caves. He made the citizens of Cajarc contribute to the 
expense of this proceeding, and even required them to send 
masons to assist him in the work ; but as they were loyal 
subjects of the French King they demurred at this, and 
he substituted additional money payment for personal 
service. He then pushed down the Cele valley to Cabrerets 
near where it debouches into the Lot, and in 1383 he 
fortified the caves of Espagnac, Brengues, Marcillac, 
Sauliac, and built the chateau du Diable at Cabrerets. 
The Count d' Armagnac sent troops to dislodge him, but 
failed. 

In the rock of Corn, a little higher up the river than the 
village, is the Grotto du Consulat, reached by a path along 
a narrow ledge. To this the villagers were wont to gather 
to elect their magistrates without interference from the 
Bastard of Albret. Within is a bench cut in the rock, and 
the roof is encrusted with stalactite formations like cauli- 
flowers. Immediately above the village is a much larger 
cavern 72 feet high and 36 feet deep. It is vaulted like a 
dome, and tendrils of ivy and vine hang down draping the 
entrance. Violets grow in purple masses at the opening, 
and maiden -hair fern luxuriates within. At the extreme 
end, high up, to be reached only by a ladder of forty rungs, 
is another opening into a cave that runs far into the bowels 
of the Causse, to where the water falls in a cascade that 
now flows forth beneath the outer cave and supplies the 
village with drinking water and a place for washing linen. 
Hard by the great entrance is another cave situated high 
up, and called the Citadel, much smaller, access to which 

134 




Corn, Lot 



Caves occupied by the Routiers. That above the large one was formerly reached by a gallery 
of vv'ood. It contains the stone table at which the Routiers gambled and drank. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

is obtained by a narrow track in the face of the rock, with 
notches cut in the limestone to receive the beams and struts 
that supported a wooden gallery which once provided easy 
access to the cave. I did not myself climb up and investi- 
gate the citadel, not having a steady head on the edge of 
a precipice, and what information I give was received from 
the cure, who seemed very much amused at my shirking the 
scramble, and thought that the Englishman of to-day must 
be very different from the Englishman of the fourteenth 
century who crawled about these cliffs like a lizard. Ac- 
cording to him, the cave within shows signs of having been 
occupied, and has in it a squared and smoothed block of 
stone nine feet long, at which Perducat and his ruffians 
doubtless caroused, as at a table. 

In the village of Corn is the picturesque chateau of the 
family of Beduer built after the abandonment of the place 
by the English. It is now occupied by poor families. A 
little farther down the valley is the castle of Roquefort, 
which was also annexed by the Captain. It is near the 
Church of S. Laurent, where was a village that was de- 
stroyed by the Company. The church itself was blown 
up later by the Huguenots. Roquefort is dominated by a 
precipice, at the foot of which lies a huge mass of rock that 
has broken off from the cliff, and on this rock a castle has 
been erected. It belonged to the family of Lascasas. One 
of these fell at Resinieres in a duel with the Seigneur of 
Camboulet; but his adversary survived him only a few 
minutes, and both were buried on the spot with three stones 
at their heads and two at their feet. When the new road 
was being made their skeletons were found. The stones 
remain in situ. 

In 1361 Cahors was in possession of the English. The 
bishop unwilling to recognise the King of England as his 
sovereign retired to the Castle of Brengues in the Cele 
valley that pertained to his family, the Cardaillacs, and thence 

135 



CLIFF CASTLES 

governed his diocese. There he died 3rd February 1367, 
and his successor also occupied the Castle of Brengues. But 
in 1377 it was captured by an English Company under 
Bertrand de la Salle, and in 1380 it was held by Bertrand 
de Besserat, to whom it was delivered over by Perducat 
d'Albret. 

There are two very remarkable castles at Brengues ; both 
were fortified by Perducat and Besserat. One hangs like 
a swallow's nest under the eaves of the overhanging rock, and 
is now wholly inaccessible, so much so that it is in perfect 
preservation. The river flows far below, and a talus of rubble 
runs up to the foot of the cliiF, along which talus^ on a narrow 
terrace, is a path. This path was defended both above and 
below the castle by gates that were battlemented and to 
which guard-rooms were attached. The pensile castle is 
not large. It was entered at one side, and has in its face 
three roundheaded windows. 

The other castle of Brengues is perforated in an angle of 
rock, at a great elevation, and consists of several chambers. 
The cave at the angle was walled up and furnished with 
doorway and windows. 

Near where the Cele flows into the Lot is the little town 
of Cabrerets. Here the precipice of fawn-coloured lime- 
stone overhangs like a wave, curling and about to break. 
On a ledge under it, and above the river and the road and 
the houses, is the Devil's Castle, built by Perducat d'Albret 
and Bertrand de Besserat. The latter held it from 1380 to 
1390, but then, at the entreaty of the neighbourhood, the 
Seigneur Hebraud de Saint-Sulpice at the head of levies 
laid siege to the castle and took it. 

The castle has one of its walls of rock ; only that towards 
the river and the two ends are structural, as is also a round 
tower. A portion of the castle has been pulled down ; it has 
served as a quarry for the houses beneath, but a good deal 
still remains. The tower is about 20 feet in diameter. The 

136 




Chateau des Anglais, Autoire 



Reached by a sharp scramble up a steep, and then by a ledge in a precipice. Some chambers 
are scooped out of the rock. When the English were besieged, they escaped by a goat-path, 
to a point whence hung a rope from a tree above, and up this they swarmed. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

entrance hall, lighted by windows, is 70 feet long and 40 feet 
wide. A second hall, partly hewn out of the rock, with re- 
cesses for cupboards and seats and with fireplace, is 42 feet 
long. The oven remains in a ruinous condition. The castle 
is reached by steps cut in the rock. 

Below Conduche, where the Cele enters the Lot, the road 
runs under tremendous precipices of orange and grey lime- 
stone, in which the track has been cut; and the road 
would be totally blocked by a huge buttress split down the 
middle had not a tunnel for it been cut. As the Roman 
road ran this way, the original tunnel was made by the 
Masters of the World, but it has been widened of late years. 
Commanding the road and the tunnel, planted in the cleft 
of the rock, is a castellated structure, that also owes its 
origin to the captains who fortified the Cele caves. 

None could pass up or down the road without being spied 
and arrested, and made to pay toll by the garrison of this 
fort.i 

The Cahors Chronicle says of this period : " Deinde fuit 
in praesenti patria mala guerra. Anglicis et Gallis hinc 
inde repraedentibus, unde evenit victualium omnium maxima 
caristia. Nullus civis Caturci villam exire erat ausus, 
omnia enim per injustitiam regebatur.**' If the merchants 
and provision wains for Cahors were not robbed at the 
Defile des Anglais, they were subjected to toll. The 
interior of the chasm reveals a whole labyrinth of passages 
and vaults dug out in the heart of the calcareous rock. 
The chambers had openings as windows looking out upon 
a river, and the rock was converted into a barrack that 
could accommodate a large garrison. 

The last of the rock fastnesses of the routiers that I 
purpose describing is of a totally different character from 
the rest. It is at Peyrousse in the Rouergue, in the 

1 So early as the eleventh or twelfth century there was not a small 
river, as the Cele and the Aveyron, on which tolls were not levied. 

137 



CLIFF CASTLES 

department of Aveyron. Peyrousse is a village, but was 
once a fortified town on a height, with its church and 
church tower standing on the highest point and visible 
from a great distance. It rises above a deep valley or 
ravine. The houses are all old, and many of them in 
ruins. The church, dating from 1680, is not ineffective; 
there are, however, the ruins of a Gothic church farther 
down the hill. One of the embattled gates of the town 
is still standing, as well as a tower erroneously supposed 
to be the bell tower of the ruined church, actually part 
of the fortification of the place. Projecting from the 
side of the hill on which stands Peyrousse, partly attached 
to it, but for the most part detached, is a ridge of schist 
starting 300 feet above the stream below, in one sheer 
precipice, and precipitous on every side. It is perhaps 
300 feet long, and rises like a blade of an axe ; at each 
extremity of this ridge is a lofty tower — one, the farthest, 
open at the side. To erect these towers it must have 
been necessary to level a portion of the sharp edge on 
which they rest. Between them one could walk only with 
a balancing pole like a tight-rope dancer, as there is a 
sheer fall on each side. The rock is called Les Roches 
du Tailleur, as having been appropriated by a captain 
who cut folk's coats according as he wanted the cloth. 
How the builders climbed to this height, how they managed 
to carry up their material, and how they achieved the 
building of these towers, is impossible to conjecture. The 
tradition is, that when the English quitted Peyrousse 
they destroyed the means of ascent, and since 1443 no 
human being has been able to climb the rock and visit 
the towers, that for nearly five hundred years have had 
no other denizens than ravens and jackdaws. But that 
is not all the puzzle of the Tailor's Rock. It is supposed 
that there was a wooden castle between the towers. There 
is no indication of there having been a stone structure. 

138 




COVOLO, FROM A PRINT BY MeRIAN, 164O-1648 

In the defile of the Brenta ; 100 feet above the road. It was capable of 
containing a garrison of 500 men. It was taken_ from the Venetians by 
Maximilian in 1509. It is between Primolano and Cismone. 




La Roche du Tailleur 

Remains of a castle on a precipitous rock at Peyrousse, Aveyron ; it was held 
by the English Routiers, who, when they abandoned it, destroyed the means 
of access, since which time it has been inaccessible. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

But if so, how was it balanced, or how secured ? A plank 
cast across the blade would make a see-saw for an ogre 
and ogress, till cut through. I endeavoured with a glass 
to see whether notches had been hacked in the schist to 
receive stays, and others on the ridge to accommodate 
joists, but could distinguish none. 

Peyrousse became a Calvinist stronghold in the Wars 
of Religion, when the churches were destroyed; but the 
Huguenots made no attempt to climb the Tailor's Hocks 
and restore the castle. At the foot of the crags are the 
remains of the chapel of the garrison. How did they 
descend to it and mount again ? I presume by a knotted 
rope. 

A cliff castle that bears a curious resemblance to 
Peyrousse is Trosky, in Bohemia, but in this latter case 
the rocks are of basalt, and between the two towers the 
connecting rock forms a deep depression. In 1415, Johann 
von Herzmanmiestetz and Otto Berka of Trosk sacked 
the monastery of Opatowitz, butchered most of the monks, 
tortured the abbot so that he died a few days later, and 
carried off all the plunder they could collect. With the 
spoil Otto Berka built a castle on the two spires of rock, 
a tower on each, and connected them with a crescent wall, 
and a gallery of communication. The walls were six 
feet thick, and the foundations clamped to the rock with 
iron. He also contrived a tunnel, cut in the rock to 
the bottom, to enable himself and his men to ascend and 
descend. In 1424, however. Otto Berka was there no more. 
The castle was besieged by the terrible one-eyed Hussite 
commander, Ziska with the Flail, and he succeeded in 
capturing the lower tower after great loss of life, but 
entirely failed to take the upper donjon. After the 
departure of Ziska the castle was taken as a residence 
by Margaret, widow of Otto Berka, who secured the lower 
tower, and her granddaughter Barbara occupied the 

139 



CLIFF CASTLES 

higher. These women hated each other as poison, and 
to personal hate was added religious rancour, for Barbara 
had embraced the party of the Utraquists. The theological 
quarrel was simply about the use of the chalice at com- 
munion. The Roman Church had withdrawn it from 
the people ; the Utraquists asserted their right to it ; and 
about this question the two parties fought and slaughtered 
each other, and burnt towns and castles. The tradition 
is that all day long, and part of the night, the two women 
screamed abuse at each other from their several towers, 
and desisted only for their meals, their devotions, and 
necessary sleep. Folk passing along the highway would 
halt and listen to the yelling and vituperation of the two 
shrews. Each had her own chapel at the foot of the 
cliffs, in which each ostentatiously followed the rite of 
which she approved ; and to this day the chapels remain. 
According to the local story, the cries of the women were 
so strident and so continuous that all birds were scared 
away from Trosky. At length Margaret died, and Bertha 
had become so accustomed to scolding at the top of her 
voice, that she died soon after from dissatisfaction at having 
lost the object of her abuse. 

In 1468 Trosky was the property of William von Hasenburg, 
who sided with King Mathias against George Podjebrad. 
After the defeat of Mathias, Podjebrad captured Trosky, 
but as the owner came to terms, he was allowed to retain 
his castle. The towers are all that remain of the castle ; 
the curtain wall has been broken down. The lower tower 
can be reached by a climber with a steady head, but not 
without risk of life. The higher tower is quite inaccessible. 
From the height a magnificent prospect is obtained, with 
Prague in the distance. 

To return once more to the routiers. 

Near Mont Dore is the Roche de Sanadoire, 3660 feet 
high, composed of phonolith and basaltic prisms. On the 

140 



CLIFF CASTLES 

top stood the fortress of the routiers, calling themselves 
English, under a Captain Chennel, from 1378 to 1386, 
when he was caught, conveyed to Paris, and broken on the 
wheel. It is not to be wondered at that the memory of 
the terrible times of the English domination, and its con- 
sequence, the reign of the routiers, should linger on in the 
memory of the people ; that every cliff castle should be a 
Chateau des Anglais, or a Chateau du Diable — they mean 
the same thing. The peasant reads but little — history not 
at all ; but Jean Bonhomme looks up at the cliffs and finds 
the story of the past graven there ; and just as the twinge 
of a corn is still felt after the foot has been amputated, so 
— though the English rule has passed away, three hundred 
and fifty years have intervened — he still winces, and curses 
the haunts " de ces cochons d' Anglais,*" though in fact ces 
cochons were his own compatriots, doubled-dyed in iniquity, 
as traitors to their country and their King. 



141 



CHAPTER VI 

CLIFF CASTLES— Continued 

I TOOK the third of the classes into which I have 
divided my subject of cliff castles, first of all ; and 
now I shall take the others in the category. 

The Seigneurs were not greatly, if at all, to be dis- 
tinguished from the Captains of the roiifiers in their mode 
of life and in their fortresses, save only this, that the 
latter were elected by their followers, and the former were 
On their hereditary estates and could demand the services 
of their vassals. In the matter of scoundreldom there was 
not a pin to choose between them. But the routier chiefs 
were not tied to any one castle as their home ; they shifted 
quarters from one rock to another, from one province to 
another as suited them, whereas the seigneur had his home 
that had belonged to his forefathers and which he hoped to 
transmit to his son. 

I will give but an instance. 

Archibald V. (1361-1397) was Count of Perigord. He 
was nominally under the lilies, but he pillaged indiscrimin- 
ately in his county. Surrounded by adventurers he planted 
his men in castles about Perigord, and from that of La 
Rolphie " hung over the city like the sword of Damocles," 
menaced Perigueux. One little town after another was 
pillaged. He intercepted the merchants on the roads. 
At S. Laurent-du-Manoir his captains added outrage to 
injury, for they took all the women of the place, and cut 
off their skirts at the knees ; and one who made strenuous 
resistance they killed. 

142 



CLIFF CASTLES 

In 1385, the Seneschal of Perigord, in the name of the 
King of France, ordered Archibald to desist from his acts 
of violence. When he refused, his lands were declared 
confiscated. But who was to bell the cat ? He mocked 
at the sentence, and was roused to fresh incursions and 
pillages. At last in 1391 the Parliament acted, and 
summoned the Count to appear along with twenty-three 
of his accomplices before its bar '' to answer for having over- 
run with his troops the suburbs of Perigueux; for having 
assaulted the city, and neighbouring places; for having 
wounded and killed a great many persons; for having 
incarcerated others to extort a ransom from them; for 
having, like common highwaymen, seized cattle, fired 
granges, mills, houses; and for having committed crimes 
so infamous, so ferocious, that one would feel pain to 
disclose them." 

Archibald paid not the slightest regard to the summons 
or to the sentence pronounced against him ijt contumaciam. 
The law could not enforce its judgment, and six years later 
in 1397 he died. The King refused to recognise his son 
Archibald VI. as Count of Perigord, but Archibald disre- 
garded the refusal, and openly sided with the English. He 
successfully resisted the troops sent against him, and con- 
tinued in the same courses as his father. At last he was 
brought to bay in Montignac, where he was constrained to 
capitulate. He was sent to Charles VI., but effected his 
escape and fled to London in 1399. Thence he returned 
in 1404, and captured Auberoche, much about the time of 
the English victory at Agincourt. He died in undisturbed 
possession of his county of Perigord in 1430. 

Few portions of France so lent itself to the requirements 
of the feudal tyrants of the Middle Ages, as they did also 
to those of the routiers, as the volcanic district of Auvergne. 
There the floods of lava that flowed from the volcanoes 
have formed caps to hills, with precipices on every side, cut 

143 



CLIFF CASTLES 

through by the streams, that have separated portions from 
the main current. Every such peak or fragment of plateau 
was laid hold of by the seigneurs of old, as sites for their 
fortresses. From the number of these strongholds and the 
almost impregnable nature of most of them, the feudal 
tyrants of Auvergne were able to hold their own, long 
after the rest had been brought to their knees ; and it was 
not until Richelieu with iron hand moved against them 
that their career of rapine and violence was curbed. Begin- 
ning in 1626, Richelieu ordered the demolition of all feudal 
fortresses that were not necessary for the defence of the 
frontiers, and which were a permanent menace to the King's 
authority, and an object of terror to town and country, 
and to the nobles afforded reminiscence of past lawlessness. 
The demolition was entrusted to the communes themselves. 
And in order to bring the culprits to speedy judgment, 
he renewed the institution of the Grand Jottfrs ; that of 
Poitiers in 1634 condemned over two hundred nobles con- 
victed of exactions and crimes. 

But it was impossible in many places, notably in Auvergne, 
for the communes to get hold of the castles and blow them 
up. There, for some thirty years longer, the seigneurs 
defied justice, and it was much the same elsewhere. On the 
31st August 1665, the Grand Jours were announced for 
all the centre of France, but notice that they were to be 
held had been given so long before that the guilty were 
allowed plenty of time to escape out of the country, go into 
hiding or come to' terms. Great were the expectations of 
the people. Right was at length to prevail over Might. 
The Day of Judgment was coming on the oppressors. The 
Mighty would be put down from their seat and the humble 
would be exalted in their room. A peasant wearing his 
cap before a noble, the latter knocked it off his head 
" Pick it up,'' said the peasant, " or the King will cut off 
your head." The seigneur obeyed. 

144 



CLIFF CASTLES 

But the result was disappointing. Only one noble had 
his head cut off. Few executions were carried into effect, 
many were on paper. One of the latter, a ruffian steeped 
in blood, defied the sentence and was banished. Flechier 
in his amusing and instructive book, Les grands Jours 
d'Auvergrie, has given us a dramatic account of the trial. 

Every description of intrigue was had recourse to, in 
order to neutralise the effect of justice. The fair ladies of 
Clermont, les chats fourres^ as Flechier calls them, did their 
utmost to reduce the severity of the judges. The Great Days 
lasted three months, and ended in disappointment. Many 
of the worst offenders, convicted of atrocious crimes, entered 
the Royal service and fought in the armies of the King. 

But if justice spared the culprits, the opportunity was 
accorded to destroy their strongholds, and now little remains 
of these Towers of Iniquity but the foundations, and some 
fragments of their massive walls, which were generally con- 
structed of basaltic prisms taken from the rock that sus- 
tained the castles, laid horizontally. " Puzzolana was mixed 
with the mortar used in these constructions, and without 
the binding quality communicated by this ingredient, 
probably no cement would have taken effect on the smooth 
and iron surfaces of the prisms." ^ 

The King had indeed desired that greater severity should 
be used. He wrote to the judges: *' You must manage to 
banish oppression and violence out of the provinces. You 
have begun well, and you must finish well."" At the con- 
clusion he had a medal struck representing a slave rising 
from the ground, under the protection of the sword of 
royalty, and with the expressive device, Sahis provmciaruvi 
repressa potentorum audacia. 

It was, however, rather the destruction of the nests than 
the punishment of the Vultures that effected the work. 

^ Poulett Scrope, " The Extinct Volcanoes of Central France," Lond. 
1858. 

145 K 



CLIFF CASTLES 

The Marquis de Canillac, one of the worst, escaped into 
Spain. He had maintained twelve ruffians, whom he called 
his Apostles, who catechised with sword and rod all who 
rebelled against his exactions. He levied taxes on necessary 
articles of food, and when his vassals abstained from food 
he fined them for not eating. He allowed none to marry 
without paying into his hands half the dot of the bride. 
His kinsman, the Vicomte Lamotte-Canillac, was the one 
culprit executed. 

The river Vezere, opposite to the prehistoric caves of 
Moustier, makes a sudden bend about a wall of chalk 300 
feet high and 1500 feet long. " Of all the rocks that have 
served for the habitation of man, this is the most striking 
for its dimensions and for the number of habitations it con- 
tained, if one may give that name to the excavations which 
the hand of man has appropriated to his use. Staircases 
were carved in the rock, carried half-way up the height, 
to where the cliff has been excavated, its recesses enlarged 
and divided into compartments." ^ 

This bluff is called La Roche S. Christophe. It arrests 
attention at once, for half-way up it is furrowed horizontally 
as though worked by a giant's tool. If the visitor approaches 
the cliff, he will find that the masses of rock that have 
fallen from above, as well as others that have formed spurs, 
have been extensively worked to form town walls, gateways, 
a church, a monastery, and dwelling-houses. 

One gateway, bored through the rock, has a guard-room 
or sentineFs watch-chamber scooped out of a pinnacle. 
But not a roof remains, not a living soul is to be seen in the 
street, not a huxter's stall in the market-place, only tiles 
strewn about and white rocks blackened with smoke show 
that man lived there. 

By a flight of stairs cut in the rock, the visitor can ascend 
to the furrow in the face of the cliff, and there he finds 

1 De Roumejoux, Bulletin de la Soc. Hist, de Perigord. T. xix. 1892. 

146 



CLIFF CASTLES 

that the whole has been elaborately utilised. There are 
chambers excavated in the chalk that were formerly closed 
by wood partitions, with recesses for beds, cupboards, seats 
— clearly the bedrooms of ladies. The grooves into which 
the planks were fitted can be made out. Doors were fitted 
into rocky rebates to move on their hinges, the hinges being 
round prolongations of the door frame turning in holes sunk 
in floor and roof. The kitchen is there, the bakehouse 
with its oven ; the guard-room with its benches for the 
troopers, cisterns, store-chambers, closets, cellars, a chapel, 
and the latrines. All but the last are on a level in one 
long row, with the cliif descending precipitately from the 
gallery that precedes the apartments and gave communication 
between them and which, in part, had been widened by 
means of a wooden balcony and railing. The chapel, if 
that be the walled structure in a hole of the rock, is now 
inaccessible. Its destination is uncertain. The peasants 
so designate it. 

Fragments of earthenware vessels and of tiles lie on the 
floors. I could find nothing else. 

Above the principal gallery are others of less importance 
that can only be reached from the top of the cliff*. 

This Roche Saint Christophe has a history. It was first 
fortified by Frotarius de Gourdon to resist the incursions 
of the Northmen. He was assassinated at Mourcinez in 
Coursac in 991. There was a priory in the town below, 
mention of which is found in a charter of 1187. 

The remarkable range of chambers and structures in the 
face of the precipice formed the castle of the family of 
Laroque. It was a worthy family, greatly respected in the 
neighbourhood, and loyal to the crown of France. The 
seigneur was the protector of the little town that lay 
below. 

On Passion Sunday, 1401, the townsfolk and the occu- 
pants of the castle were gathered in the church, when a 

147 



CLIFF CASTLES 

cry was raised that the enemy had swarmed over the walls 
and were in the town. Adhemar de Laroque was the 
seigneur at the time. He hastened from the church, but 
already the street was full of English, and escape to his 
castle was cut off, as they had secured the stair. 

Adhemar had a personal enemy, one Jean Ducos, a kins- 
man of the Baron de Limeuil. These men, calculating that 
the garrison of La Roque would be off its guard on that 
holy day, arranged with the English garrison of the Rock of 
Tayac to surprise the town. 

They came upon it unobserved, and breaking in, massacred 
the people and the guards; then ensued a general pillage, 
and a conflagration. Every house was fired after it had 
been ransacked, and the English Ribands running along 
the platform with torches in their hands, applied the 
flame to everything combustible — doors, galleries, partitions, 
rafters — all blazed, and the only portion of the castle and 
town that was left unconsumed were the latrines, to which they 
did not consider it worth their pains to apply their torches. 
From that day to this the town of La Roche Saint 
Christophe has been abandoned. No cottager has ventured 
to repair the ruined habitations for his own use; as the 
place is esteemed haunted, notably on the night of Passion 
Sunday, when a ghostly train of the dead is seen flickering 
in and out of the rocks and ruins by the light of the Easter 
moon. 

But the castle was again tenanted for awhile by a band 
of Huguenots, who committed such depredations in the 
neighbourhood that on 30th March 1588, the Viscount 
of Aubeterre, Governor of Perigord issued orders — '' as the 
enemies of the King occupying this Castle are doing incred- 
ible mischief to the poor folk of the neighbourhood," that 
they should be expelled and the castle be utterly destroyed.^ 

1 La Koche S. Christophe is mentioned in the letters of Petrarch. 
Labbe. Frag, Ep, Petrarchi. 

148 




Kronmetz 



This cave castle was nominally held by nobles in feof to the Bishop of Trent, but It actually 
became a den of robbers. It was taken by storm in 1210. Count v. Firmian, to whom it 
belongs, has built for himself a more convenient residence at the foot of the rock. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

Quite as curious, and with a less tragic history is La 
Roche Gageac on the Dordogne, below Sarlat. " Ma chere 
patrie,'' wrote the old chonicler, Jean Tarde, " une petite 
ville bien close et tres forte dependant de la temporalite de 
I'evesque de Sarlet, la quelle ne fut jamais prinse par les 
Anglais.^''' 

The white Jurassic limestone dappled orange, fawn colour, 
and silver grey, rises 250 feet above the river, the lower 
portion is in terraces, very narrow, on which are the houses 
clinging to the rock, cramped between the Dordogne and 
the cliff which rises 140 to 160 feet above. The old houses 
are echeloned along the face of the rock, superposed the one 
on the other, calcined by the sun as they face south, and the 
rock behind cuts off all northern winds and reflects the 
glare of the southern sun. This explains the vegetable pre- 
cocity of the spot, where wallflowers, cactus, roses, luxuriate. 
It would be too hot were it not for the abundant springs, 
and the proximity to the Dordogne down which a cool air is 
wafted. 

The habitations are either partly or wholly caves, they do 
not reach half-way up the rock which overhangs to the 
west. In the face of the cliff are two castles built into its 
recesses, one pertained to the Bishop of Sarlat, and the other 
to the Fenelon family. Both were ideals of a stronghold in 
the Middle Ages, impossible to escalade or to undermine. 
In the fifteenth century La Roche Gageac was a walled town 
containing five chateaux of noble families, juxtaposed and 
independent of each other, although comprised within the 
same enclosure. Originally indeed all were under the Bishop 
of Sarlat, but the Popes had set the example of jobbery for 
the benefit of their sons and nephews, and the Bishops were 
not slow to follow the lead. One Bishop made over the 
principal castle to his brother as a hereditary feof, and 
others disposed of the rest for money down, so that by the 
second half of the sixteenth century the town had been dis- 

149 



CLIFF CASTLES 

membered. Although it had held out against the English, 
when thus broken up among several, it could not defend itself 
against the Calvinists, who took, burned and sacked it in 
1574. They killed three Sarlat priests. It was retaken by 
the Royal troops in 1575, but it again fell into the hands of 
the Calvinists in 1588, and the wreckage of its ecclesiastical 
buildings dates from those two captures. 

The principal castle, that which i belonged to the Bishop 
of Sarlat, occupies one of the profound horizontal furrows 
in the face of the rock, that are so common in the lime- 
stone and chalk formations. It consists of three towers, 
two of which are square and one round, with curtains 
uniting them, and a gate-tower, to which a flight of steps 
cut in the rock gives access for a part of the way. But to 
reach this flight one has to mount by a series of posts 
serving as steps driven into sockets in the rock, with only 
here and there a sustaining iron bar. Below the structure 
are chambers, possibly prisons, but more probably store 
rooms dug out of the rock. In this castle one of the Bishops 
of Sarlat, in stormy times, lived continuously, and there 
died. How was his body carried down the stair ? Probably 
it was lowered by ropes. 

I cannot quit La Roche Gageac without a word on one of 
its most illustrious natives, Jean Tarde, born there in 1561 
the friend of Galileo, and who, the first in France, five years 
after the great Florentine had begun to search the skies 
with his telescope, invented one year previously, erected his 
tube here at one of the openings of this eagle's nest, and 
during ten consecutive years pursued his astronomic studies. 
He was a remarkable man in many ways. He was the first 
to map his native Perigord, and the first to write a chronicle 
of the diocese of Sarlat, a valuable work for any who would 
compile a history of the Hundred Years' War, the first also 
to repudiate the accepted attribution of the dolmens as 
altars of saciifice, and to indicate their true character as 

150 



CLIFF CASTLES 

sepulchres. His account of the ravages committed by the 
Huguenots is also valuable. The year before his birth, in 
1560, at Lalande, the Calvinists got into the town through 
a hole in the wall, killed the first Consul, the Vicar, and 
six other priests, and massacred a hundred of the inoffensive 
citizens. Sixty took refuge in the church. The Calvinists 
forced such as could to ransom their lives, and slaughtered 
such as were too poor to do this. He was but six or seven 
years old when the Huguenot captain, the Sieur d'Assier, 
took La Roque, " killing the priests and burning the 
churches." He was aged twelve when Captain Vivant took 
Sarlat, suppressed the bishopric, and killed three of the 
canons and several of the citizens. At La Chapel le-Faucher 
in 1569 the heretics drove 260 peasants into the castle and 
-massacred them all. He was made Vicar-General to the 
Bishop of Sarlat, and it was after having made a tour of the 
diocese in 1594 that the idea occurred to him to write the 
history of his country and repair as far as possible the loss 
of so many of the archives that had been burnt. In 1599 
he was made honorary chaplain to Henry IV., and in 1626 
was published his Descriptio7i dupais de Quercy. His history 
of Sarlat, after remaining in MS. was at length published 
in 1887, but only 150 copies were printed. Happily 
one is in the British Museum, and I possess another. 

Gluges is on the Dordogne near Martel, where high up 
in the cliff, difficult of access, is the fortified cave-castle of 
Guillaume Taillefer, son of Raymond IV., Count of 
Toulouse, who was created Lord of Quercy in 972. Nearly 
on the level of the river is a cave half walled up, with traces 
of fresco on the walls, of course much later than the time 
of Taillefer. A modern house has been built on the plat- 
form that has been levelled, and much of the wall demol- 
ished ; the upper fortified cave has an opening in the wall, 
pointed, of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. In much 
the same condition is another cliff castle in the rocks of the 

151 



CLIFF CASTLES 

valley of the Alzou, between Grammat and Rocamadour, 
a little above the cascade of the mill Du Saut. 

I have elsewhere ^ given an account of the curious castle 
of La Roche Lambert at Borne in Haute Loire, built in 
a basaltic cleft through which roars the river. It is the 
theatre of George Sand's novel, Jean de la Roche. " I may 
say without exaggeration that I was reared in a rock. The 
castle of my fathers is strangely incrusted into an excava- 
tion in a wall of basalt 500 feet high. The base of this 
wall, with that face to face with it, identically the same 
rock, forms a narrow and sinuous valley, through which 
winds and leaps an inoffensive torrent in impetuous cas- 
cades. The Chateau de la Roche is a nest of troglodytes, 
inasmuch as the whole flank of the rock we occupy is 
riddled with holes and irregular chambers which tradition 
points out as the residence of ancient savages, and which 
antiquaries do not hesitate to attribute to a prehistoric 
people. 

" The castle of my fathers is planted high up on a ledge 
of rock, but so that the conical roofs of the tower just reach 
above the level of the plain. My mother having poor 
health, and having no other place to w^alk save one tiny 
platform before the castle on the edge of the abyss, took 
it into her head to create for herself a garden at the summit 
of the crag on which we were perched midway." 

In Cantal at Roqueville are the remains of a castle exca- 
vated out of the rocks. Between Jung-Bunzlau and Bohm- 
Leipa in Bohemia is the rock-castle of Habichstein. Two 
lakes lie in a basin of the hills that are well-wooded up 
their sides, but have bare turfy crowns. The upper lake is 
studded with islands. Betw^een this and the lower lake 
stands an extraordinary hump of sandstone, on a sloping 
talus. This hump has much resemblance to a Noah's Ark 
stranded on a diminutive Ararat. The rock is perforated 
^ " A Book of the Cevennes," Lond,, J. Long. 

152 




The Puxer Loch, Styria 



Supposed to have been occupied by a shadowless man. It was still inhabited, 
last century by an old mason. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

in all directions with galleries and chambers, and contains a 
stable for horses and for cattle, which, however, is no longer 
accessible. On the summit of the rock rises a keep very 
much resembling a Pictish broch. Habichstein belongs to 
the Wallenstein family that possesses a stately schloss at 
the head of the upper lake. It has been abandoned for, 
probabl}!^, two hundred years, as it can never have been 
a comfortable residence; moreover, the sandstone is con- 
tinually breaking away. Below the hill and castle is the 
village. In 1811 there was a fall of the rock, and again 
in 1815, when it crushed three of the houses beneath. 

Another and still more curious cliff castle in Bohemia 
is that of Burgstein. There are several on the frontier of 
the Wargau and the Hardt in North Bohemia, where the 
German and Czech languages meet, but it is not possible here 
to describe them all. Burgstein is the most curious. It 
consists of an isolated mass of sandstone springing out of 
level land, an outlying block of the Schwoik chain. Formerly 
it rose out of a lake or marsh, but this is now drained. 
The entrance is through a narrow gap in the rock by a 
flight of steps that lead into a court on all sides surrounded 
by sheer precipices except towards the North-west, where a 
gap was closed by a wall. Out of this court open caves, one 
was formerly the smithy, another the guard-room, a third 
the stable, and in a recess is the well. From the court 
access to the main structure is obtained by a rift in the 
sandstone commanded by the guard-room, and up which 
ascends a stair of 15 steps that leads to a second rift at 
right angles, up which leads a further stair of 76 steps, 
and from the landing 37 descend to a lower portion of the 
rock, a platform with a breastwork of wall, important for 
defence of the entrance. 

The steps lead to various chambers, and to an open court 
that looks out over the precipice, and has on one side 
scooped out of the rock a watchman's chamber, and on the 

153 



CLIFF CASTLES 

other an armoury, where pilasters on each side supported 
shelves on which helmets and breastplates were laid ; 
and beyond this is a guard-room. The summit of the rock 
has on it a lantern that lights an underground chapel, and 
formerly contained a bell, also a modern summer-house. 
As the rock was commanded from the south by a spur of 
the Schwoik range, when cannon were introduced, a new 
mode of access was devised on the north side, a passage 
in loops was constructed leading to the upper court. The 
castle called in Czech, Stolpna, or the pillar, is first men- 
tioned in the fourteenth century. The great highroad to 
and from Bohmisch-Leipa passed near it, and it became the 
stronghold of a Raubritter, Mikisch Passzer of Smoyn, 
who became such a terror to the neighbourhood that the 
Sixtowns league of Lausitz in 1444 attacked it with 9000 
men, broke down the dam that held back the water, and 
made of the rock an islet in a lake and constrained Mikisch 
to surrender. Soon after, however, he recommenced his 
lawless proceedings, and was again attacked in 1445, and 
after a siege that lasted five weeks, forced to quit his 
fortress. At the end of the seventeenth century Burgstein 
was converted into a hermitage and Brother Constantine, the 
first hermit, either enlarged or dug out the present chapel 
and built the lantern above, through which it obtains light. 
He did more, he carved a figure of himself looking through 
a telescope, life size, and planted on the summit of the 
rock. On the occasion of the Prussian invasion of Bohemia 
the image was assumed to be a spy, and the Germans fired 
at it and greatly damaged the figure, and were much 
puzzled at being unable to prostrate the dauntless spy. 
The present possessor of the rock castle has had the figure 
restored. Burgstein remained the abode of a hermit till 
1785, when the reforming Joseph II. abolished all hermit- 
ages, and turned out every hermit in his dominions. And 
now, back to the Jura limestone again. A few words must 

154 



>^... 

m 







5. 5.-G. 

Habichstein, Bohemia 

A castle belonging to Count Wallenstein, now abandoned owing to the falling away 
of portions of the rock. It contains stables for horses and cattle, now inaccessible 
without ladders. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

be given to Kronmetz in Tirol, at the mouth of the Val 
di Non, opening into the Etschthal. 

This castle belonged to the Bishops of Trient, and was 
intended by them to serve as a place of " ward and custody " 
against invading or marauding bands. 

But quis custodiet mistodes f It was granted in fief to 
two brothers Von Leo, who turned it into a robbers' nest, 
so that the neighbourhood rose in arms in 1210 and 
stormed it. Then the bishops confided it to the Herren 
von Metz, and they carried on a feud with their overlord, 
the bishop. 

At last it came to the Counts von Firmian, who, in 
1480, built a more convenient mansion at the foot of the cliff', 
and turned the old castle into a hermitage. 

The castle, that is in a fair condition, occupies a broad 
cleft in the rock, only accessible by a narrow path cut in the 
rocks on the west side. It consists of an outer court and an 
inner court, protected on the side of the precipice by a stout 
wall, behind which were originally chambers, as windows in 
the wall and beamholes show to have been the case. There 
is a donjon that reaches to the overhanging rock and a 
ruinous chapel with apsidal east end. The cleft runs further 
east, but is blocked with a wall. 

Another cliff* castle, of which Merian, in his Topographia, 
1640-88, gave a picture to arouse interest and wonder, is that 
of Covolo, at one time in Tirol, now over the Italian border. 
His description of it is as little accurate as his illustration. 
As a matter of fact, although it is certainly a cliff' castle, 
constructed in a cave, it is accessible on foot, and it is by no 
means necessary to be conveyed to it by a windlass. Indeed 
it would not be easy to erect a crane on the platform of the 
castle that could haul up men and provisions from below. 

A more famous fortress in a cave is that of Schallaun in 
the Puxerloch. Here is a grotto in the face of the precipice, 
75 feet above the valley. The cliff" itself is 4500 feet high. 

155 



CLIFF CASTLES 

The castle consists of two stages, the outer court is at a 
lower level than the face of the cliff, and the opening of the 
grotto. Entrance was obtained through this outer court 
that was reached by a path cut in the rock, and from it by 
a stair also rock-hewn. A second court was reached, above 
this was again a third within the cave. On the right hand 
the cave branches out into a long inner cleft that was closed 
at one time by a door, and was probably used as a cellar. 
The main cavern also runs by a narrow passage deep into 
the heart of the rock to a pool of crystal clear water, never 
failing. The main building — hardly a donjon, was occupied 
till late in last century by an old mason who patched it up 
and made it habitable. At a little distance to the east is a 
smaller cave also with a wall in front of it, and this is said 
by the peasants to have been the kitchen of the castle, and 
to have been reached by a wooden gallery from the main 
building. According to tradition, Schallaun derives its 
name from Chalons. In the time of Charlemagne a knight 
of Chalons named Chariot eloped with a Saxon princess, and 
took refuge in this cave. It became a den of thieves, and 
Margaret Maultasch (Pouchmouth) took and dismantled it. 
According to another story the castle served as the haunt 
of a shadowless man. Unlike Camizzo's hero, he had not 
sold his shade to the devil, but by a lapse of nature had 
been born without one. This proved to him so distressing, 
and so completely interfered with his matrimonial prospects 
that he took refuge in the Puxerloch, where he was in 
shadow all day, and his peculiarity could not be noticed; he 
issued from it only on moonless nights, on one of which he 
carried off a peasant maid — and she never knew that he was 
shadowless, for he never allowed her to see his deficiency. 
Historically very little is known of the Schallaun castle, which 
is to its advantage, as when these castles are mentioned in 
chronicles, it is to record some deed of violence done by the 
occupants. In 1472 it belonged to the knightly family of 

156 



CLIFF CASTLES 

Sauran, but they sold it. It is now the possession of the 
Ritter von Franckh.^ 

Perhaps the nearest approach to the Puxerloch castle in 
France is the Roc de Cuze near Neussargues in Cantal. In 
the face of the cliff is a cave that has been converted into 
a castle, a wall closes the mouth, and there is a tower. 
Another fortress completely carved out of the rock is at 
Roqueville. 

I will now deal with the third class, rock towns and 
castles combined. And I can afford space to treat of but 
one out of the many that would enter more or less into the 
category. 

Although Nottingham town does not occupy the top of 
a rock, its castle that does cannot be passed by without 
notice, because that rock is perforated with galleries and has 
in it a subterranean chapel. 

The castle, now bereft of its ancient splendour, of its 
coronet of towers, was built by William the Conqueror on 
the summit of a precipitous height rising above the river 
Leen. It was dismantled by Cromwell, and what remained 
was pulled down by the Duke of Newcastle, who erected on 
its site the uninteresting and unpicturesque mansion that 
now exists. 

The castle was long considered impregnable; and to it 
Queen Isabel fled with Sir Roger Mortimer, whom she had 
created Earl of March, and she held it with a guard of 
one hundred and eighty knights. King Edward III. with a 
small retinue occupied the town. Every night the gates of 
the fortress were locked and the keys delivered to the 
Queen, who slept with them under her pillow. Sir William 
Montacute, with the sanction of the young king, summoned 
to his aid several nobles on whose fidelity he could depend, 

^ In " Unser Vaterland, Steiermark," Stuttgart, n.d., p. 47, is a repre- 
sentation of the Puxerloch, but it resembles much more Kronmetz. It 
gives towers and walls and gates that do not exist in the Puxerloch. 

157 



CLIFF CASTLES 

and obtained Edward's warrant for the apprehension of the 
Earl of March. The plot was now ripe for execution. For 
a time, however, the inaccessible nature of the castle rock, 
and the vigilance with which the gates were guarded, 
appeared to present an insuperable obstacle to the ac- 
complishment of their designs. However, Sir William 
Eland, Constable of the Castle, was won over, and he 
agreed to admit the conspirators. In the words of an old 
chronicler, the Constable said to Montacute, " Sir, woU ye 
unterstande that the yats (gates) of the castell both loken 
with lokys, and Queen Isabell sent bidder by night for the 
kayes thereof, and they be layde under the chemsell of her 
beddis-hede unto the morrow . . . but yet I know another 
weye by an aley that stretchith out of the ward, under the 
earthe into the castell, which aley Queen Isabell ne none of 
her meayne, ne the Mortimer, ne none of his companye 
knoweth it not, and so I shall lede you through the aley, 
and so ye shall come into the castell without spyes of any 
man that bith your enemies." On the night of October 19, 
1340, Edward and his loyal associates before midnight were 
guided through the subterranean passage by Eland, and 
burst into the room where the Earl of March was engaged 
in council with the Bishop of Lincoln and others of his 
friends. Sir Hugh Trumpington, Steward of the House- 
hold, a creature of Mortimer, attempting to oppose their 
entrance, was slain. The Earl himself was seized, in spite 
of the entreaties of Isabel, who, hearing the tumult, rushed 
from her chamber, crying ''Fair son, spare my gentle 
Mortimer!" Both were secured. The next day, Edward 
announced that he had assumed the government, and 
summoned a Parliament to meet at Westminster on the 
26th November. No sooner had this Parliament met than 
a bill of impeachment was presented against Mortimer. 
The peers found all the charges brought against him to be 
"notorously true, known to them, and all the people." 

158 



CLIFF CASTLES 

And he was sentenced to be drawn and hanged as a traitor. 
Mortimer was executed at Tyburn, and the Queen Mother 
was sent under ward to the manor of Rising. The passage 
by which the conspirators entered, and by which the Earl 
was conveyed away, goes by the name of Mortimer's Hole to 
the present day. 

If I were to attempt to deal with castles and towns on 
rocky heights I would have to fill pages with descriptions 
of Capdenac, Najarc, Minerve, Les Baux, San Marino, San 
Leo, and many another, but inasmuch as they are on rocks 
instead of being in rocks, I must pass them over. 

A fourth class of cliff castle, neither the habitation of 
a routier nor the residence of a feudal seigneur, is that which 
commands an important ford, or the road or waterway to 
a town, and which was, in point of fact, an outpost of the 
garrison. 

I can describe but a few. 

The Emperor Honorius had conceded to the Visigoths all 
that portion of Gaul that lay between the Loire and the 
Pyrenees. The Visigoths were Arians. Far from imitating 
the Romans, who respected the religion of the vanquished, 
and cared only that the peoples annexed to the Empire 
should submit to their administrative and military organisa- 
tion, the Visigoths sought to impose Arianism on the nations 
over whom they exercised dominion. The bishops and 
priests protested energetically against this tyranny, and the 
Visigoths sought to break their resistance by persecution 
and exile, but gained nothing thereby save bitter hostility. 
In the year 511 an event took place that gave to the 
Aquitanians their religious liberty. The Franks were their 
deliverers. 

Clovis, who coveted the rich provinces of the South, 
profited by the religious antagonism existing between the 
Aquitanians and the Goths to gain the confidence of the 
bishops to whom he promised the destruction of Arian 

159 



CLIFF CASTLES 

supremacy. And as he had obtained the strongest and 
most numerous adhesions in Poitou he resolved there to 
strike a decisive blow. 

He prepared his expedition with such secrecy and moved 
with such celerity that Alaric II., King of the Visigoths, did 
not become aware of his peril till the army of Clovis was 
on the confines of his realm. He threw himself into Poitiers, 
and assembled all the forces he was able to call together. 
Clovis crossed the Loire at Tours, and directed his march 
towards Poitiers; he passed over the Creusse at Port de 
Pilles, and reached the Vienne. The season was the end 
of September, and there had been so much and such con- 
tinuous rain that the river was swollen, and he could not 
cross. Accordingly he and his army ascended it on the 
right bank seeking for a ford. 

He reached Chauvigny, where was a ford, but this was 
now found impracticable. On the left hand of the present 
road to Lussac-le-Chateau is a stony, narrow, waterless 
valley, up which formerly ran the old Roman highway. At 
the 2 1 kilometre stone is a dense thicket of oak coppice, 
clothing the steep side of the valley. By scrambling down 
this, clinging to the oak-branches, one reaches a bluff of 
chalk rock, hollowed out by Nature at the foot to the depth 
of 10 feet, and running horizontally to the length of from 
32 to 34 feet, and terminating in a natural barrier of rock. 
It contracts in one place so as to form two chambers. Now 
this gallery is closed towards the valley by a screen of six 
huge slabs 8 and 9 feet long, 8 and 9 feet high, and 4 feet 
thick. They have apparently been slung down from above, 
and caught and planted so as to wall up the open side of 
the recess. And at the north end another block, now 
broken, was set at right angles so as to half close the gallery 
at the end, leaving a doorway for access to the interior. 
The attempt to plant these huge slabs on a steep slope was 
not in every case successful, for a couple slid down the 

160 




A Portion of the Rock Monastery, Nottingham Park 



CLIFF GASTLES 

incline, but these served to form a heel-catch to those who 
did remain erect. Local antiquaries pronounce this to be a 
fortified cave, unique of its kind, devised to protect the 
road to Lussac, at the strategical point where it could best 
be defended. I have myself no manner of doubt that it was 
a so-called demi-dolmen, a tribal ossuary of neolithic man. 
Not only is it quite in character with his megalithic remains 
scattered over the country, but treasure-seekers who in digging 
displaced and brought down one of the side slabs found two 
diorite axes, one of which I was fortunate enough to secure. 
Persons in Gaulish or post-Roman times would not have 
dreamed of going to the enormous labour and attempting 
the difficult task of forming the sides with stone slabs, but 
would have closed the recess with a wall. The cave goes 
by the name of La Grotte de Jioux (of Jove) which in itselt 
hints its remote antiquity. 

But, although I do not believe that this cave was con- 
structed as a military vidette and guard-house, I have no 
doubt whatever that it may have been so used, and it is 
very probable that at this point took place the first brush 
of Clovis and his Franks with the enemy, for the valley 
bears the name of Le Vallon des Goths. Alaric knew, what 
Clovis did not, that there was a ford at Lussac, and if he 
had any military foresight, he would plant a body of men 
across the road in the throat of the valley to intercept the 
Franks on their way. As it was, the Franks pushed on, 
and seeing a deer wade across the river at Lussac, raised 
exultant shouts, plunged into the Vienne, and crossed. 
The result was the battle of Voulon, in which the Arian 
Goths were defeated, and their empire broken down.^ The 
Grotto of Jioux was but an accidental outpost, but those I 

^ This decisive battle is located at Vouille to the north-west of Poitiers ; 
but local historians are convinced that the site was Voulon to the 
south of Poitiers. See Thibaudeau, Abrege de V Histoire de Poitou, Niort, 
1889. 

161 L 



CLIFF CASTLES 

am about to describe were artificially contrived for that 
purpose. 

In the broad valley of Le Loir below Vendome, the great 
elevated chalk plateau of Beauce has been cut through, 
leaving precipitous white sides. At one point a buttress 
of rock has been thrown forward that dominates the road 
and also the ford over the river. Its importance was so 
obvious that it was seized upon in the Middle Ages and 
converted into a fortress. The place is called Le Gue du 
Loir. Not far off is the Chateau of Bonnaventure, where 
Antoine de Bourbon idled away his time drinking Surene 
wine, and carrying on an intrigue with a wench at le Gue, 
whilst his wife, Jeanne d'Albret, was sending gangs of 
bandits throughout her own and his territories to plunder, 
burn, and murder in the name of religion. But Antoine 
cared for none of these things. At Bonnaventure he com- 
posed the song : — 

Si le roi m'avait donne 
Paris, sa grande villa, 
Et qu'il me fallait quiter 
L'amour de ma mie, 
Je dirai au roi Henri (III.) 
Reprenez votre Paris, 
J'aime mieux ma mie 

Au Gue, 
J'aime mieux ma mie. 

Moliere introduced a couplet of this lay into his Alceste. 

The rock has been excavated throughout, and in places 
built into, and on to. Two flights of steps cut in the cliff 
give access to the main portion of the castle. That on the 
right leads first of all to the Governor's room, hewn out ot 
a projecting portion of the rock floored with tiles, with a 
good fireplace and a broad window, commanding the Loir 
and allowing the sun to flood the room. The opening for 

162 




La Roche Corail 

A cave fortress commanding the river Charante. The large 
opening is formed by breaking away a doorway and windows ; 
the doorway communicated with a wooden balcony leading to 
other chambers in the rock. 




The First Hall. La Roche Corail 

Windows and slots for discharging missiles and for spearing those attempting to attack the 
garrison in its stronghold. 



CLIFF CASTLES 

the window formerly contained a casement. There is a 
recess for a bed, and there are in the sides numerous cup- 
boards and other excavations for various purposes. This 
chamber is entered through that of the sentinel, which was 
also furnished with a fireplace. The stair leads further up 
to a large hall artificially carved out of the chalk, but not 
wholly, for there had been originally a natural cavern of 
small dimensions, which had a gaping opening. This open- 
ing had been walled up with battlements and loopholes, but 
the old woman to whom the rock or this portion of the 
rock belongs, and who is a cave-dweller at its foot, has 
demolished the wall to breast-height, so as to let the sun 
and air pour in, for she uses the cave as a drying place 
for her wash. From this hall or guard-room two stair- 
cases cut in the rock lead to other chambers also rock-hewn 
higher up. 

The second main stair outside gives access to a second 
series of chambers. 

Unfortunately, some rather lofty modern buildings have 
been erected in front of this cliff castle, so as to render it 
impossible to make of it an effective sketch or to take a 
satisfactory photograph. 

Still more interesting is La Roche Corail below Angou- 
leme on the river Charente, opposite Nersac and the conflu- 
ence of the Boeme with the Charente. Where is now a bridge 
was formerly a ford. The castle of Nersac commanded one 
side of the valley, and La Roche Corail the other. This 
cliff castle was at one time very extensive. The rock rises 
from a terrace partly natural and partly artificial, on which 
a comparatively modern chateau has been erected that 
masks the rock-face. But on entering the court behind the 
chateau the bare cliff is seen with a yawning opening half- 
way up, and indentations in the wall of rock show that 
at one time there were hanging barbacans and chambers 
suspended before the rock as well as others hewn out of it. 

163 



CLIFF CASTLES 

To reach the interior it is necessary to enter a grange 
that has been built at right angles to the rock, and in it to 
mount a ladder to another granary that occupies a floor of 
solid rock. Thence a second ladder leads into the caves. 
Formerly, however, the ascent was made by steps cut in the 
side of the cliff, and openings from within enabled the 
garrison with pikes to precipitate below any who were 
daring enough to venture up the steps uninvited. 

The ladder gives admission through a broken door cut in 
the rock into a long vaulted hall, that was formerly floored 
across so as to convert it into two storeys.^ The lower 
storey or basement opens on the left-hand side into a 
second cave, and the upper by a passage cut in the rock 
communicated with another range of chambers looking out 
of the face of the crag by artificial windows. Immediately 
in front of one entering the hall is the portal of admission 
to another very large hall that had originally well-shaped 
windows, and a door leading on to the wooden balcony, but 
this has all been broken away forming the ragged opening 
seen from below. 

In 1534 Calvin was staying in the adjoining parish of 
S. Saturnin with a canon of the cathedral of Angouleme, 
who had a good library, and was disposed to favour him. 
The house is pointed out, but it has been rebuilt or altered. 
A cavern there is also shown to which Calvin retired to 
meditate on his Reform. It is now a cellar full of casks, 
wheelbarrows, and rubbish. It was never a very pleasing 
resort, and he preferred to come to La Roche Corail where, 
in the cavern just described, he had more space, and less 
likelihood of being disturbed. And here it was that he 
wrote his " Institute of the Christian Religion.'"* One is 
disposed to rest here for awhile and muse, and consider 

1 Actually the doorway and three lower openings look into the dark 
granary. In the illustration I have shown them as letting light in, as 
intended originally. 

164 




^ '2 




CLIFF CASTLES 

what a manufactory of explosives this cavern was. From 
this vaulted chamber was launched that doctrine which was 
to wreck nearly every church in France and drench the soil 
in blood. I do not in the least suppose that Calvin saw 
any beauty in the view through the gap in the rock — not 
in the island below with its poplars and willows whose 
branches trail in the bottle-green waters of the Charente — 
not in the lush meadows with the yellow flags fluttering by 
the waterside — not in the grey towers of Nersac castle and 
church rising above dark woods, flushed orange in the 
setting sun against a purple sky. I do not suppose that 
he noticed the scent of the wallflowers growing out of 
every fissure wafted in on the summer air. There was logic 
thought in his head, but no poetry in his heart, no sweet- 
ness in his soul. He looked across in the direction of 
Angouleme, and wished he had a ladder and a hammer that 
he might smash the serene face of the Saviour looking down 
on the city from the western gable of the cathedral. Five 
and twenty years must elapse before that wondrous domed 
pile was to be wrecked by the Huguenots, his disciples. 
But here it was, in this cavern, that he elaborated his 
system of reform, treating Christianity as a French peasant 
treats an oak tree, pollarding it, and lopping off" every 
lateral, natural outgrowth. Assuredly, many a volatile 
superstition had lodged in its branches, and many a gross 
abuse couched under its shadow. But these might have 
been scared away without mutilating the tree till it was 
reduced to a stump. He desired, doubtless, to bring back 
the Church to the condition in which he supposed it 
had been when born. But one cannot reduce an adult 
to the simpHcity and innocence of childhood by stripping 
off" all his clothes, and denying him the conventional fig- 
leaf. 

Having shattered the Catholic faith by the crowbar of 
his logic, he sought to build up a grotto out of its fragments, 

165 



CLIFF CASTLES 

and call it a church. His "Institute of the Christian 
Religion "" was published the following year. It produced 
the desired effect at once. There were many reasons why 
it should. Earnest and devout souls were troubled at the 
sight of a Christianity that was so in name but had little 
Christianity in its practice. They felt that the Church had 
drifted far out of its way and had grounded on quicksands, 
and they thought that the sole way of saving the hulk was 
to cast all its precious lading into the sea. Christ's Church 
had been founded on a rock, it had withstood the rain and 
the flood, but was crumbling down with dry rot. Calvin 
would have neither the rock nor the sand. Into the mud 
he drove the piles by the strokes of his genius, on which to 
erect the platform that was to uphold the conventicle of his 
followers, and if that did not stand, it would at least mark 
its site by their dejections. And dejections there are every- 
where, where the Calvinists were, wrecked churches, mutilated 
monuments, broken glass, and shattered sculpture. Ruskin, 
remarking on some delicate carving at Lyons, under a 
pedestal, observes that the mediaeval sculptors exhibited 
absolute confidence in the public, in placing their tenderest 
work within reach of a schoolboy's hand. Such, however, 
was the love of the beautiful generally diffused, that objects 
of art were safe from destruction or defacement. But with 
the outburst of Calvinism all those affected were inflamed 
with a positive hatred of the beautiful in art. If this had 
been confined to the destruction of images to which idolat- 
rous worship was offered, it would be explicable and justifi- 
able, but it extended to the most innocuous objects. Delicate 
tracery such as adorns the west front of the church of 
Vendome, a lace-work of beautiful sculpture representing 
trailing roses and vines, birds and reptiles, was ruthlessly 
hacked. Churches, cathedrals, were blown up with gun- 
powder — such was the fate of the cathedrals of Montauban, 
Perigueux, and Orleans. Beza himself rolled the barrels of 

166 



CLIFF CASTLES 

gunpowder to explode under the great piers that sustained 
the central tower of Orleans. ^ 

The cry for reform was loud, and rang from every 
quarter of Europe except from the Vatican, where the 
Pope, like Dame Partington with her mop, thought to stay 
its progress. The grandsons of the old routiers cried fie 
on this quiet life, and snuffed the air for rapine. The 
nobility were out of pocket and out at elbows, and looked 
with avaricious eyes on the fair and broad lands of the 
Church, and their fingers itched to be groping in her 
treasury, and they hoped to patch their jerkins with her 
costly vestments. Court favourites were abbots in com- 
mendam, held prebendaries, without being in holy orders, 
sixfold pluralists abounded, ecclesiastical hippopotami, that 
might fairly be hunted. All kinds of interests were enlisted 
against the Church, good and bad, sincere and hypocritical, 
only a spokesman was needed, a trumpet sound to call to the 
battle, and Calvin proved the spokesman, and his " Institute " 
was the trumpet note. 

An outpost station that is curious and puzzling is La 
Rochebrune on the Dronne, below Brantome. The road 
to Bourdeilles and Perigueux runs, immediately below a chain 
of very fine chalk cliffs, and there is but just space for it 
between the steep slope below them and the river. At one 
point about a mile and a half below Brantome, the cliff is 
broken through, where a lateral valley opens on that of the 
Dronne : here there is a talus overgrown with box and juniper 
leading up to a rock, of inconsiderable height, with some holes 
in it, overhanging, and capped with brushwood that at one 
time also covered the slope below the rock. 

By the roadside, immediately under this rock, is the 
opening into a cave that admits into another much larger, 

* In 1769 Montgomery was preparing to blow up the beautiful Cathedral 
of Condon, only consecrated thirty-eight years before, but accepted as its 
ransom from the inhabitants the sum of 30,000 livres. 

167 



CLIFF CASTLES 

and lighted from above, and in which at the extremity is a 
passage leading upwards, now choked with earth and stone. 

The original entrance to the cave has been destroyed 
through the widening of the highroad, so that it is now 
impossible to tell whether it was effectually concealed or 
whether precautions had been taken for its defence. 

At one spot only in the rocks above is there a gap, and 
through that gap, probably once walled up, access is obtained 
into a sort of circular courtyard, where there are traces of a 
fireplace, and where is a stone bench. From this court a 
spiral staircase, rock-hewn, leads to the platform on top of 
the rocks. In the wall on the right of the court is a door- 
way neatly cut in the chalk, square-headed and adapted for 
a framed door that could be strongly barricaded. Immedi- 
ately within is a quadrangular pit sunk in the floor, now 
choked with stones. This, in such a position, could not be 
a silo, it probably was the opening through which those who 
entered the cave from below, by the road, made their way 
into the interior of the fortress. Stepping over this pit one 
enters a hall with six large round holes cut in the roof 
communicating with an upper chamber, and receiving 
a borrowed light through them. A spiral staircase at the 
side furnished with meurtrieres through which the besieged 
could stab at their enemies, leads to the upper hall or 
chamber, which is lighted by two rude windows, one high up, 
the other low down, and with a bench recess opposite them. 
But the strange and perplexing feature of this room is that 
it has in the floor eight round holes, each large enough to 
let a man fall through. Six communicate with the chamber 
below, but the other two open under the overhanging 
cornice, outside the castle. One of the holes — opening into 
the nether chamber, is precisely where would rest the feet 
of men seated on the bench. There is no trace of a groove 
to receive covers to these holes. 

It has been conjectured that this strange construction 

168 



CLIFF CASTLES 

was a granary, in which the peasants concealed their corn ; 
but there are difficulties in accepting this theory. The 
Rochebrune commands the road, and a hiding place would 
assuredly be located in the depths of a wood, away from a 
highroad, in some secluded valley. It has been conjectured 
that the holes served for discharging the corn into the lower 
chamber. But why carry it by a narrow winding stair 
aloft to pour it down into a nether cave, when the latter, 
the supposed granary, itself was at once accessible through 
the doorway ? Moreover, two of the holes open outwards, 
and not into the supposed store-chamber. It may be said 
that these were for hauling up the sacks of corn, but the 
incline on which they open is so steep, that it would be a 
prodigious waste of labour to drag the corn up under the 
cornice in which they are, whereas the other ascent is easy. 
The precautions taken to provide means of stabbing at an 
assailant point to this having been a fortress. My inter- 
pretation of the puzzle is this: first, that the left hand 
stair leading to the summit of the crag enabled one of the 
defenders to light a beacon, so as to warn the people of 
Brantome when danger threatened ; that next, the garrison, 
which could not have comprised more than five or six men, 
as Rochebrune is very small, retired within the rock. If 
this courtyard were invaded, they escaped into the lower 
chamber and barred the door, and were able to thrust at 
assailants through the slots. But if the door yielded they 
would scramble up the rock stair into the upper apartment, 
and as the enemy broke into the lower cavern, they stabbed 
and thrust at them through the six holes in the floor. 
Should their position be rendered untenable, they could 
slip through the two holes that opened outwards, into the 
brushwood and so effect their escape ; for these holes would 
not be perceived, or their purpose understood by besiegers 
unfamiliar with the castle. 

Usually, over the floor, riddled like a colander, planks 

169 



CLIFF CASTLES 

were laid, that on emergency could be turned up on their 
sides. I may add that the windows opening outwards are 
purposely so inartificially made that no one passing along 
the road underneath would suspect that there was a fortress 
above his head. He would certainly suppose that these 
holes were natural, such as are commonly found in the 
chalk cliffs. In fact the first time I visited Brantome, and 
walked down the river to Bourdeilles, I passed this rock and 
entertained no suspicion that it contained anything remark- 
able, that it was as a matter of fact, a mere shell, with all 
the artificial work within. 

Why was it that every city — nay, every little town — 
had to be not only walled about but to have its outposts ? 
Because France was not a nation, only a congeries of in- 
dividualities. As Michelet says of the fourteenth century : 
"The kingdom was powerless, dying, losing self-conscious- 
ness, prostrate as a corpse. Gangrene had set in, maggots 
swarmed, I mean the brigands, English and Navarese. All 
this rottenness isolated, detached the members of the poor 
body from one another. One talks of the Kingdom, but 
there were no States General, nothing at all general, no 
intercommunication, the roads were in the power of cut- 
throats. The fields were all battlefields, war was every- 
where, and none could distinguish friend from foe."" 

How needful these outposts were may be judged from 
what Froissart says : " Rogues took advantage of such 
times (of truce), and robbed both towns and castles; so 
that some of them, becoming rich, constituted themselves 
captains of bands of thieves ; there were among them those 
worth forty thousand crowns. Their method was to mark 
out particular towns or castles, a day or two's journey from 
each other; then they collected twenty or thirty robbers, 
and travelling through by-roads in the night-time, about 
daybreak entered the town or castle they had fixed upon, 
and set one of the houses on fire. When the inhabitants 

170 



CLIFF CASTLES 

perceived it they thought it had been a body of soldiers 
sent to destroy them, and took to their heels as fast as 
they could " (Bk. i., c. 147). 

Passing on from the outposts to towns, or defences to 
highways, we must glance at such as guard the approaches 
to countries, or such as Gibraltar that commands the great 
waterway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. 
Gibraltar is certainly the most complete and marvellous of 
all cliff castles. This is too well known to English travellers 
to need description here. 

The French Gibraltar, Urdos, commands one of the 
passes through the Pyrenees. It is hewn out of the moun- 
tain in a buttress of rock, and rises in stages from the road 
to the height of 500 feet. Externally the mountain looks 
harmless enough. A cave opens here, and a rift there, and 
a few streaks of masonry may be noticed, but actually the 
mountain is riddled with galleries, batteries, and long 
flights of stairs, and hollowed out for ammunition and other 
stores ; and it is capable of containing a garrison of three 
thousand men. 

Faron also, 1660 feet high, with its magnificent precipices 
of salmon-coloured limestone, commanding both the harbour 
of Toulon and the Bay of Hyeres, is capped with fortifica- 
tions and pierced with batteries, casemates, and chambers 
for military stores, a position made by Nature and utilised 
with supreme skill. Nor must the chain of rock-forts 
of Campi delle Alte and of Mont Agel above Monaco, 
dominating the Corniche road be forgotten, ready to drop 
bombs amidst an army from Italy venturing along that 
splendid road, nor must Besan^on be forgotten, occupying 
its inaccessible rock — inaccessible that is, to an enemy. 

"Oppidum maximum Sequanorum," as Caesar described 
it in his day ; '' natura loci sic muniebatur ut magnam ad 
ducendum helium daret facultatem." 

Ehrenbreitstein faces the i opening of the Moselle into the 

171 



CLIFF CASTLES 

Rhine ; and Frankenfeste holds the key of the Brennerpass ; 
and Dover Castle commands the strait at its narrowest. 
Konigstein crowning a precipitous rock 748 feet above 
the Elbe, though in Saxony is garrisoned by Prussians, 
guards the pass down the river from Bohemia; and 
Peterwardein is a rock-built fortress, that has been called 
the Ehrenbreitstein and Gibraltar of the Danube. What 
are these frontier fortresses but the same on an extensive 
scale as the Gue du Loir, the Roche Corail, and the 
Rochebrune? In the Middle Ages every city, every little 
town had to have its outposts and watch-tower on the 
look-out for the enemy, and to break the first impetus 
of an attack. But now it is not the town but the nation 
that has to gird itself about with frontier fortresses. 



172 



CHAPTER VII 

SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

WHEN the periodj ot persecution of the/ early 
Christians had come to an end, and they were 
able in security to assemble for worship, two 
distinct types of Church contested for the supremacy — 
the Basilican and the Catacumbal. 

Even during the times before Constantine, when persecu- 
tion was in abeyance. Christians had been accustomed to 
gather together for the Divine mysteries in private houses. 
But after that Christianity was recognised and favoured, 
the wealthy and noble citizens of Rome, Italy, and Africa, 
who had become Christians, made over their stately recep- 
tion halls, or basilicas, to be converted into churches. These 
basilicas, attached to most palaces, were halls comprising 
usually a nave with side aisles separated from the nave 
by ranges of columns, and an apse at the extremity of 
the nave in which the master of the house was wont to 
sit to receive his clients and his guests. This is the type 
upon which cathedral and parish churches in east and 
west are modelled. But the early Christians had become 
accustomed in times of danger to resort to the subterranean 
chapels in the Catacombs. The poorer members doubt- 
less preferred these dingy meeting-places to the lordly 
halls of the nobles, and the slaves could not feel their 
equality with their masters under the same roof 
where they had served, and been whipped, as in the 
Catacombs, where all were one in fear of their lives and 
in the darkness that buried distinction. Moreover, the 

173 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

cult of the martyrs had grown to a passion, and it had 
become customary to commemorate their nativities as 
it was called, i.e. the anniversaries of their deaths, at their 
tombs in the Catacombs. It was there that the faithful 
habitually prayed, it was near the bones of the Saints 
that it was believed special sanctity dwelt, and that prayers 
were most effectually answered through their intercession ; 
and it was there, ad martyres^ that they themselves pur- 
posed to be laid in expectation of the Resurrection. 

In Rome, the tombs of the martyrs continued to enjoy 
popular favour, and to attract crowds, till the incursion 
of the Lombards, when, to save the relics of the Saints 
from profanation, they were transferred to the basilicas 
within the walls, whereupon the Catacombs ceased to 
interest the faithful, that were neglected and allowed to fall 
into oblivion. Gaul rejoiced in having had its soil watered 
with the blood of many witnesses to the Faith, consequently 
it had numerous hypogee chapels, and when, to the Martyrs 
were added hermits, abbots, bishops, devout women, and 
confessors of all descriptions, their underground tombs 
became extraordinarily numerous, and were resorted to 
with great devotion. Such was the origin of the crypts 
found in profusion in France, not under cathedrals only, 
but under parish and monastic churches as well. The 
whole population having become Christian, the resort to 
these subterranean chapels became so great as to cause 
inconvenience, and the bishops proceeded to "elevate" 
"illate" and ''translate'' the bones of the saints from 
their original resting-places to the basilicas above ground. 
Thereupon the crypts lost most of their attraction, and 
the worshippers gathered about the altars in the upper 
churches to which the bones had been transferred. 

In Britain, where there were no early martyrs save Alban 
at Verulam, and Julius and Aaron at Caerleon, the type 
of church from the beginning was basilican, as we may see 

174 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

by that unearthed at Silchester, and that of S. Martin at 
Canterbury. 

It was the same in Germany and throughout Northern 
Europe. 

John and Paul were chamberlains to the Princess 
Constantia. They had in some way incurred the anger 
of the Emperor Julian, and he sent orders for their despatch 
in their own house on the Coelian hill. They were ac- 
cordingly executed in their bath, and were buried in the 
cellar under their mansion. At once a rush of the devout 
of Rome took place to the Coelian to invoke the aid 
of these new martyrs. The visitors picked off the 
plaster, scribbled their names on the walls, applied ker- 
chiefs to the tomb, and collected the dust, stained with 
the blood of the chamberlains. Pope Hadrian IV., 1158, 
built a basilica on top of the house, driving the founda- 
tions through it, and transferred to this upper church the 
bones of SS. John and Paul. At once the stream of de- 
votion was deflected from the substructure to the super- 
structure, and the former was filled up with earth and 
totally abandoned. 

Herbert Spencer has established in his "Principles of 
Sociology " that the mausoleum was the egg out of which 
the temple was evolved. The first cave-dwellers buried 
their dead in the grottoes in which they had lived, and 
themselves moved into others. They periodically revisited 
the sepulchres to bring offerings to the dead. In time the 
deceased ancestor became invested by the imagination of 
his descendants with supernatural powers, and ascended 
from stage to stage till he was exalted into a deity. Thence- 
forth his cave became a temple. Ferguson, writing of the 
Chaldasan temples, and indicating their resemblance to 
tombs says, "The most celebrated example of this form 
is as often called (by ancient writers) the tomb or the 
temple of Belus, and among a Turanian people the tomb 

175 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

and the temple may be considered as one and the same 
thing."! 

In the primitive Church there were, as we have seen, 
churches which had no connection whatever with sepulchres, 
and chapels underground that contained tombs. The 
current of popular feeling set so strongly towards the latter 
that the Popes yielded to it, as did also the Bishops, and 
converted every basilica into a mausoleum by the transfer to 
it of the bones of a saint. 

But that was not all. The Holy Mysteries had been 
celebrated in private houses and basilicas on wooden tables, 
sometimes square, but often round, and with three legs. An 
illustration is in the cemetery of S. Calixtus, of the latter 
half of the second century, where a priest is represented cele- 
brating at what looks like a modern tea-table. According 
to William of Malmesbury, S. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester 
(1062-1095), destroyed the wooden altars in his diocese, 
which had been universal in England, altarea ligiiea jmninde 
a priscis diebus in Anglia. But with the transformation of 
the basilica into a mausoleum, the altar was also transformed 
into a sepulchre. If it did not contain the entire body of a 
saint, it had a hole cut in it to receive a box containing 
relics ; and the Roman pontifical and liturgy were altered in 
accordance with this. The Bishop on consecrating an altar 
was to exact that it should contain relics, and the priest on 
approaching it was required to invoke the saints whose 
bones were stored in it.^ The cavity in the slab to contain 

^ Clement of Alexandria (Exhort, to the Heathen) had already said, 
'' Temples were originally Tombs." Of. also Eusebius (Prasp. Evangelica 
ii. G) heads the chapter, " The Temples of the Gods that are none other 
than Tombs." 

2 Pontifex accepta mitra, intigit policem dextr£e manus in sanctum 
Chrisma et cum eo signat confessionem, id est sepulchrum altaris, in quo 
reliquiae deponendse. Pont. .Roman. The priest on ascending to the altar 
kisses it, and refers to the relics contained in it. " Oramus te, Domine, 
per merita sanctorum tuorum quorum reliquiaa hie sunt — ut indulgere 
digneris omnia peccata mea." 

176 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

the relics was liturgically entitled sepulchrum. The change 
from a table to a tomb involved a change of material from 
wood to stone. 

The dedication of a church to a saint in the Latin Church 
implies the presence in the sepulchre of the altar of the 
relics of that saint. From the Roman point of view, a 
dedication without the relic is unmeaning. Among the 
Celts this was unknown, with them a church took its name 
after its founder, and the founder of a church dedicated it 
by a partial fast of forty days, and prayer and vigil on the 
spot. The early basilicas of Rome also took their titles from 
the families that surrendered their halls for Christian worship. 
The introduction of dedication to deceased saints marks 
unmistakably the transformation of a church from a basilica 
to a mausoleum. 

It is certainly remarkable that whereas in Paganism the 
identification of the tomb with the temple passed away, 
and the temple acquired independence of such association, 
in the Latin Church the reverse took place; there the church 
unassociated with a tomb — a basilica in fact — was converted 
into a sepulchral monument. 

The reverence of the early pontiffs shrank from dis- 
membering the bodies of the saints. To Queen Theodelinda 
Pope Gregory I. would accord only oil that had burnt in the 
lamps at their tombs, or ribbons that had touched them. 
Gregory V., in 594, wrote to Constantia Augusta, who had 
built a church in honour of S. Paul, and craved a portion of 
his body : " Dear lady, know that the Romans when they 
give relics of the saints are not accustomed to parcel up 
their bodies, they send no more than a veil that has touched 
them." 1 

But when the Latin Church was constrained by the force 
of popular prejudice to transform all her sacred temples into 
sepulchral churches, there was no help for it ; the bodies of 
1 Baronius, Hieroihonie de J. C, Paris, 1630, p. 173. 

177 M 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

the saints had to be torn in pieces for distribution. A toe, 
a finger was taken off, legs and arms were amputated, the 
vertebrae of the spine were dispersed over Christendom, the 
teeth were wrenched out of the jaws, the hair plucked from 
head and chin, moisture exuding from the body was carefully 
cherished, and bones were rasped to furnish a little sacred 
phosphate of lime to some church clamorous to be conse- 
crated. 

A plateau to the south of Poitiers had long borne the 
name of Chiron Martyrs. Chiron means a heap of stones, 
but why the epithet of Martyrs attached to the heaps of 
stones there nobody knew. The old Roman road leading 
to and athwart it was named La Route des Martyrs, also 
for no known reason. But in October 1878 the plateau 
was being levelled by the military authorities, when it was 
discovered that the stones were actually broken tombs, and 
that they were clearing a pagani Necropolis. Soon they 
came on a portion where were sarcophagi orientated and 
crowded thickly about a subterranean building. The dis- 
tinguished antiquary, Le Pere de la Croix, now undertook 
the investigation, and discovered that these latter were the 
tombs of Christians, and that they surrounded a hypogee 
Martyrium. This was excavated and proved to be a chapel 
erected over the bodies of certain martyrs of Poitiers, of whom 
no records had been preserved, or at all events remained, 
whose very existence was unknown ; also, that it had been 
constructed by an abbot Mellebaudes at the end of the sixth 
or beginning of the seventh century. It contained an altar 
built up of stone, plastered over and painted, measuring 
at the base 2 feet 8 J inches by 2 feet 2 inches and 3 feet 
7 inches high. Also sarcophagi for the bodies of the martyrs 
there found, also one that Mellebaudes had prepared for 
himself. In the floor were many graves, possibly of his 
kinsfolk. Numerous inscriptions in barbarous Latin, some 
paintings and carvings, were also found. Among the latter 

178 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

a rude sculpture represented two of the martyrs, Hilarius 
and Sosthenes, who had been crucified. A bracelet of amber 




Plan of the Martyrium. 



1-4. Stone sarcophagi. 

5, 6, 9, 10, 14. Graves sunk in the rock, 

covered with flat slabs, containing 

bones. 
8. Pit covered with a carved slab. 

11, 13. Children's graves covered with 
carved slabs brought from elsewhere. 

12. Pit containing no bones. 



A. Altar. 

B. Arcosolium containing the sarco- 

phagus with the bones of the 
martyrs. 

C. The sculpture of the crucified saints. 

D. Doorway. 
F.F. Pilasters. 

0.0. Broken pilasters. 

G.G. Benches. 

H. Sarcophagus of Mellebaudes. 

E. East window. 



and coloured glass beads, amber ear-rings, and bronze orna- 
ments were also discovered. 

179 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

Mellebaudes certainly built his mausoleum where there 
had been one earlier, that had become completely ruinous, 
for he complains that he had not been able to recover all 
the bones of the martyrs that had been laid- in it. This 
destruction had probably been effected by the Visigoths, 
and the building by Mellebaudes took place some time after 
the defeat and expulsion of these Arians in 507. The 
final ruin of the Martyrium he raised may have been the 
work of the Saracens in 732.^ 

The hypogee was sunk nine feet in the rock, but the 
roof must have shown above ground. A window was to 
the east. S. Avitus in the sixth century speaks of the 
wondrous skill of architects in his day, who contrived to 
introduce daylight into the crypts. It is evident that no 
glass was inserted in the window, although the use of glass 
for windows was becoming general in the sixth century; 
and Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, died 609, and Gregory, 
Bishop of Tours, died 595, both speak in terms of admira- 
tion of the glazing of windows for churches. It may well 
be understood that in the mind of the people long after 
the stream of public devotion had been directed to the 
churches above ground, a liking for those that are excavated 
underground should remain. Indeed, it is not extinct yet, 
as any one may see who visits the church of Ste. Croix at 
Poitiers, or S. Eutrope at Saintes, or S. Martin at Tours, 
to mention but three out of many. In all these are mere 
empty tombs, yet they are the resort of numerous devotees. 
The darkness, the mystery of these subterranean sanc- 
tuaries, impressed the imagination. Accordingly we find, 
especially in France, many cave-churches. Indeed they are 
so numerous that I can afford space to describe but a 
couple of the largest. Many are small, mere chapels, and 
shall be dealt with under the heading of hermitages. 

1 For full account with plates see P. Camille de la Croix, S. J. Hypogee 
Martyrium de Poitiers, Paris, 1883. 

180 




5. B.-G. 

Interior of the Monolithic Church of S. Emilion, Dordogne 

Height from the floor, sixty feet. It is no longer used for divine worship. 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

Few scenes of quiet landscape can surpass that of the 
valley of the Dordogne from the road between Sauveterre 
and Libourne. It broke on me upon a breezy spring 
morning. The Dordogne, broad and blue, swept through 
the wide valley between banks dense with poplar and osier. 
The whole country wore a smiling aspect; the houses, 
built of freestone, looked fresh and comfortable, and were 
surrounded by their gardens. The maize- fields were as a 
rippling green sea. The flax- fields in bloom were sheets 
of the tenderest blue, and those of the Trifolkim incarnatum 
red as blood, and the road was like a white ribbon bind- 
ing together a variegated wreath. To the north of the 
Dordogne rose a grey cluster of buildings, the old town 
of S. Emilion, famous for its wine. It occupies the edge 
of a plateau. The only business pursued therein is the 
making of wine and of macaroons. 

The entrance to S. Emilion is not striking. None of 
its buildings, except the keep of its castle are visible. 
The road dives into a grove of acacias, and then enters 
the town by a narrow street. The acacias were a mass of 
pink and white blossom, exhaling a sweet fragrance. 

In the middle of the eighth century lived a hermit 
named Emilian, born of obscure parents at Vannes in 
Brittany. He became known to the Count of that place, 
who took him into his service, where he showed himself 
profusely charitable to the poor with his master's substance. 
This led to his ignominious dismissal, and he wandered 
into the Saintonge, entered the Benedictine Order, and 
became baker to the monastery. But he proved so objec- 
tionable there that he was turned out. So he wandered 
further south, and finding a rock in the forest above the 
Dordogne, wherein was a small cave, out of which flowed 
a spring, he took up his abode therein. His fame soon 
brought disciples to him, and gathered admirers about 
him ; and after his death in 767, a monastery of Bene- 

181 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

dictine monks was settled there, and a town sprang up 
about it. 

The cave of S. Emilion still remains. In face of it 
rises a mass of rock with abrupt scarp towards the west 
and the market-place. Thence a street slopes up to the 
platform on the top of the rock. The front of the rock 
has an ambulatory before it pierced with windows and 
doors, and through these latter access is obtained to the 
interior of the rock, which is hollowed out into a stately 
church, dedicated to the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, 
and Balthazar. 

This monolithic church has for its base a parallelogram 
measuring 120 feet by 60 feet. It is composed of two 
portions of unequal height. The anterior portion is a 
vestibule, narthex, or ambulatory to the church, and is only 
21 feet high. The windows in this are of the flamboyant 
order, and the principal doorway is richly sculptured. The 
body of the church into which this vestibule opens is 
95 feet long and 60 feet high. The body consists of a 
nave and side aisles, all excavated out of the living rock. 
Six windows light the interior, the three in the flamboyant 
style already mentioned, and above, set back the whole 
length of the narthex under circular-headed arches, are 
three plain, round-headed windows, like a clerestory, open- 
ing into the nave and aisles, one window in each. 

Looking from the market-place at the church the spec- 
tators would suppose that the nave ran parallel with the 
vestibule, but this is not the case, it is at right angles 
to it. 

The small upper windows cast but a chill and feeble light 
into the vast cavern, so that the choir and chapels are buried 
in perpetual twilight. The windows in the vestibule do very 
little towards the illumination of the interior. At the extremity 
of the nave, which is raised on steps to form a choir, anciently 
stood the high altar, but this has been removed. Above, where 

182 




Interior of the Monolithic Church, Aubeterre, Charente. 



Showing the gallery of communication to the Seigneural pew, seen in face. The supports of the 
gallery vault have crumbled away within forty years, through neglect. 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

it was can be discerned faintly through the obscurity, a bas- 
relief rudely sculptured, but very curious. It occupies the 
entire width of the choir ; on the right is an angel playing 
upon a stringed instrument, with outspread wings, as if 
in the attitude of soaring, and on the left, perched on a 
rock, is a monstrous animal with gaping jaws, bristling 
mane, and raised paws. In the midst of the group is a 
little old man armed with a stick, apparently repelling 
this monster. It has been conjectured that this is intended 
as a representation of the saint himself ready to deliver his 
votaries from the jaws of Hell. But it is more probable 
that the whole subject is allegorical of Death, armed with 
his scythe between the powers of Light and of Darkness. 
The choir arch is one of the boldest and most original con- 
ceptions in this marvellous temple. It consists of two 
gigantic angels carved out of the sandstone, with their feet 
upon the piers on each side, and their heads nearly meeting 
at the crown of the vault. Each has four wings, the two 
smaller wings are raised about their heads, forming a 
nimbus to each. The other two wings are depressed. 
These mighty angels were formerly whitened and partially 
gilt, and the effect of the great figures looming out of the 
dark vault is most impressive. 

On the right side of the nave, at the spring of the arches, 
between two of the piers, is a centaur armed with a bow, cut 
in the^[stone, and on the opposite spandril are two goats, 
disposed back to back, also cut in the rock. On one of the 
piers is an inscription graven regarding the dedication of 
the church, but unfortunately the date is illegible. The 
exterior of the church is adorned with a noble portal, richly 
sculptured, of much later date than the church within. 

On entering the church through this rich portal a feeling 
of astonishment comes over one. The exterior in no way 
corresponds with the interior, which is void of ornament. 
The piers are massive parallelograms without mouldings, 

183 



SUBTERKANEAN CHURCHES 

the arches between them semicircular, stilted, perfectly 
plain ; a string alone marks the rise of the arch from the 
pier. 

In the floor of one of the aisles is a hole through which 
a descent was anciently made into the crypt below the 
church ; this crypt also is hewn in the solid rock, and has a 
funnel-shaped dome, a spiral flight of steps was cut in the 
rock round it descending from the church into the crypt. 
The descent must have been hazardous in the extreme unless 
the stairs were provided with a balustrade, of which at 
present no trace remains. 

Admittance into the crypt is also obtained through a 
door cut in the face of the rock, but this was made in 1793 
when the soil and the bones of the old canons of the Church 
of the Three Kings were required for saltpetre to make 
gunpowder for the armies of the Republic. Over the door 
is a mask carved in the stone and a little window ; above 
the monolithic church, standing on the platform of rock, is 
the exquisite flamboyant spire, not communicating with 
the church beneath, also a modern salle de danse. 

Another subterranean church as interesting but not as 
well preserved is that of Aubeterre in Charente, on the 
Dronne. By the valley of the Dronne all movement of troops 
from the Limousin and Perigord into the Saintonge took 
place, and the rock of Aubeterre was considered of so great 
military importance that a strong castle was constructed on 
the summit, and its possession was contested repeatedly during 
the Hundred Years' War and the wars of religion. Its 
position was peculiar in this also, that it was in the senes- 
chaute of the Angoumois, in the diocese of Perigueux, and 
for the purpose of taxation in the Limousin. 

The town is built in the form of an amphitheatre on a 
chalk [hill that commands the Dronne. The hill is precipi- 
tous in parts, and is everywhere so steep that the roofs of 
the houses are below the gardens of those above them, 

184 




ROCAMADOUR 



A cluster of chapels, some excavated in the rock. Zacchaeus is erroneously supposed to have: 
lived and died in one of them. A famous place of pilgrimage. 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

and the saying there is, " Mind that your cattle be not 
found in your neighbour's stable by tumbling through the 
roof." The castle occupied a height cut off from the town 
by a deep cleft, that has its sides pierced with caverns, and 
its store chambers and cellars are dug out of the rock. But 
the most curious feature of Aubeterre is the monolithic 
church of S. John beneath the castle. The doorway 
admitting into it is on the level of the street, and gives 
access to a charnel-house with what would be termed 
arcosolia in the catacombs, on each side, and the floor is 
humpy with graves- This is 70 feet long by 16 feet wide. 
On the right hand it gives admission through a doorway 
cut in the rock to the church itself, consisting of a nave 
and side aisle divided from it by massive monolithic piers, 
very much decayed at the top. It is lighted by three 
round-headed windows like a clerestory without glass. At 
the further end is an arch admitting to an apse, in the midst 
of which is an octagonal monolithic tomb of Renaissance 
style, with columns at the angles, and surmounted by the 
statue of Francois d'Esparbes de Lussac, Marshal of 
Aubeterre, and the much mutilated figure of his wife in 
Carrara marble. 

A gallery excavated in the rock above the arch into 
the apse is continued the whole length of the aisle, 
and turns to admit into the seigneural gallery or pew high 
up over the entrance whence he and his family could hear 
Divine Service. 

On the right-hand side of the nave opens a second 
charnel-house, called by the people " the Old Church," also 
with its arcosolia ; there is also a door by which exit is 
obtained into a small cemetery overgrown with briars and 
thorns, and with the head-crosses reeling in all directions, 
and utterly neglected. For centuries not this yard only, 
nor the two charnel-houses but also the floor of the church, 
have served as the burial-place of the citizens of Aubeterre, 

185 



SUBTERKANEAN CHURCHES 

and the floor is raised four feet above that of the apse 
though frequent interments. The last head cross I noted 
within the church bore the date 1860. 

The height of the church is said to be fifty feet. The 
castle above was sold about sixty years ago to a small 
tradesman of the town, who straightway pulled it down 
and disposed of the stones for building purposes, and out 
of the lead of the gutters, conduits, and windows made 
sufficient to pay the purchase-money. 

Then he converted the site into a cabbage garden 
and vineyard. Not content with this he brought a stream 
of water in to nourish his cabbages. This leaks through 
and is rapidly disintegrating and ruining the church beneath, 
that was protected so long as the castle stood above it. 
Seven years ago the arched gallery in the aisle was perfect, 
now it has crumbled away. The piers were also intact, 
now they are corroded at the top. A stream pours down 
through the vault continuously by the monument of the 
Marshal. The church is classed as a monument historigice, 
nevertheless nothing was done to prevent the damage 
effected by the destruction of the covering castle, and 
nothing is done now to preserve it from utter disinte- 
gration. 

In my opinion the apse was excavated to receive the 
monument, which consists of a mass of chalk in position, 
with a hole on one side to receive the coffins let down 
into the seigneural vault; and this could not have been 
there with a high altar behind it. In a lateral chapel 
is a hole in the vault, through which the ropes passed 
to pull the bells that were hung in a tower above, but 
which has been destroyed. 

In 1450 Aubeterre was in the possession of the English, 
and they sold it to the Count of Perigord. When the 
Huguenot troubles began, the Lord of Aubeterre threw 
himself into the movement and appropriated the lands and 

186 




AUBETERRE, CHARENTE 
Mausoleum of Fran<pois Espartes in the choir of the Subterranean Church. 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

revenues of the ecclesiastical foundations in the town. 
Fran9ois d'Aubeterre was involved in the conspiracy of 
Amboise, and was sentenced to death, but pardoned. He 
deemed it expedient, however, to go to Geneva, where, as 
Brantome informs us, he turned button-maker. In 1561 
he was back again in Aubeterre, and converted the mono- 
lithic church into a preaching " temple,"' sweeping away all 
Catholic symbols, and it remains bare of them to this day. 
His brother, Guy Bonchard, Bishop of Perigueux, was also 
an ardent Calvinist, and used his position for introducing 
preachers of the sect into the churches. Although disbeliev- 
ing in Episcopacy, he did not see his way to surrendering 
the emoluments of his see. He was deposed in 1561, and 
Peter Fournier elected, whom the Huguenots murdered in 
his bed 14th July 1575. 

In 1568 Jeanne d'Albret issued orders to the gangs 
of men she sent through the country to lay hold of the 
royal revenues, to sequestrate and appropriate all ecclesi- 
astical property, to raise taxes to pay themselves, and to 
require all municipalities to furnish from four to five soldiers 
apiece to replenish their corps. 

Jeanne's power extended over Lower Navarre, Beam, the 
land of Albret, Foix, Armagnac, and other great seigneuries. 
Through her husband, Antoine de Bourbon, she could rule 
and torture Perigord, the Bourbonais, and the Vendomois. 
She had good cause to be offended with the Pope, for in 
1563, with incredible folly, he threatened her with deposi- 
tion from her throne, a threat he could not possibly execute. 
By enrolling and sending forth over the south to ravage and 
confiscate, she was a second Pandora letting loose the 
hurricane, slaughter, fire, famine, and pestilence, leaving 
Hope locked up behind. 

Aubeterre played a conspicuous part in the wars of 
religion, and the Catholics in vain essayed to take it. The 
seigneur could always draw from the bands of Calvinist 

187 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

soldiery to hold it, and it remained in their power till the 
peace of La Rochelle. 

I might include Rocamadour in the Department of Lot 
among the interesting rock churches. It consists of a 
cluster of chapels clinging to the rock or dug out of it, and 
looking like a range of swallows'* nests plastered against the 
face of the cliff. The people of the place fondly hold that 
Zaccheus, who climbed up a sycamore tree to see Our Lord 
pass by, came into Quercy, and having a natural propensity 
for climbing, scrambled up the face of the precipice to a 
hole he perceived in it, and there spent the remainder of 
his days, and changed his name to Amator. No trace 
of such an identification occurs before 1427, when Pope 
Martin V. affirmed it in a bull, although in the local 
breviary there was no such identification. It is extremely 
doubtful whether any saint of the name of Amator settled 
here, the story concerning him is an appropriation from 
Lucca.^ 

But I will not describe this, one of the most remarkable 
sites in Europe, as I have done so already in my " Deserts 
of Southern France," and as of late years it has been visited 
by a good many English tourists, and the French railway 
stations exhibit highly coloured views of it, turning 
Rocamadour into a national show place. 

At Lirac, in Gard, is La Sainte Baume, a small church or 
chapel, excavated out of the rock, 60 feet long, 45 feet wide, 
and 30 feet high. It is lighted by an aperture in the vault. 
Three other caves behind the choir are almost as large. 

At Mimet, in Bouches-du-Rhone, is the church of Our 
Lady of the Angels, hewn out of limestone rock, with 
stalactites depending from the roof. 

At Peyre, near Millau, in Tarn, is the church of S. 
Christophe, scooped out of the living rock, with above it an 
old crenellated bell tower. 

^ Analccta Bollandiana, T. xxviii., pp. 57 et seq. 

188 





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Subterranean Church, Aubeterre 



Looking east. In the choir is the mausoleum. ^The floor of the church is raised four feet 
by it having been made the parish cemetery. The process of degradation of the pillars is 
noticeable at their heads. 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

At Caudon, on the Dordogne, now in the parish of 
Domme, the old parish church is monolithic, entirely ex- 
cavated in the rock, but with a structural bell-cot above it. 
As already mentioned, Caudon was a parish, but as owing 
to the devastations of the Companies, all the inhabitants 
had deserted it and fled to Spain, it was annexed to Domme. 
What is curious is that before it had been carved out of the 
limestone as a church there had been cave-dwellers in or 
about it, that have left their traces in the sides of the 
church. The Marquis de Maleville, who has his chateau 
near, has put the church in thorough repair, and it is still 
occasionally used. 

Natural caves have been employed as churches or places 
of worship. Thus the Grotte des Fees, near Nimes, was used 
by the Calvinists for their religious assemblies before 1567, 
when they obtained the mastery of the town, sacked the 
bishop''s palace, and filled up the well with the Catholics, 
whom they precipitated into it, some dead and others 
half alive. 

The Grotte de Jouclas, near Rocamadour, served the 
villagers of La Cave till the parish church was rebuilt. At 
Gurat, in Charente, the church of S. George is hollowed out 
of the rock ; it dates from the tenth century, it is believed, 
and preceded the present parish church, which was erected in 
the eleventh century, and is Romanesque. In the valley of 
the Borreze, near Souillac (Lot), is a cave in which bones of 
the ursus speloeus have been found. It is used as a chapel 
to Notre Dame de Ste. Esperance. 

At Lanmeur, in Brittany, is the very early crypt of 
S. Melor, a Breton prince put to death about the year 544. 
The legend concerning him is rich in mythical particulars. 
His uncle, so as to incapacitate him from attaining the crown 
of Leon, cut oiF his right hand and left foot. The boy was 
then provided with a silver hand and a brazen foot. One 
day he was seen to use his silver hand in plucking filberts 

189 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

off a tree, whereupon his uncle had him murdered. The crypt 
is the most ancient monument of Christian architecture in 
Brittany. It measures 25 feet by 15 feet 6 inches, and is 
divided into a nave and side aisles by two ranges of columns 
hardly 4 feet high, sustaining depressed arches not rising 
above S feet 6 inches, and decorated with rudely sculptured 
trailing branches. 

A still more curious subterranean chapel is near Plouaret, 




Section of the Dolmen Chapel of the Seven Sleepers near Plouaret. 

in C6tes-du-Nord. It is, in fact, a prehistoric dolmen under 
a tumulus, on top of which a chapel was erected in 1702-4. 
The descent into the crypt is by a flight of steps. The 
primitive monument consisted of two huge capstones of 
granite supported by four or five vertically planted up- 
rights, but one, if not two of the latter have been removed. 
At the east end is an altar to the Seven Sleepers, and the 
comical dolls representing them stand in a niche above the 
altar. 

In the north-west of Spain, at Cangas-de-Ones, near 
Oviedo, is a little church of probably the tenth or eleventh 
century, built on top of a cairn that covers a dolmen. This 

190 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

latter consists of a circular chamber into which leads a 
gallery composed of fifteen upright slabs, covered by four 
others. The dolmen served as a crypt to the church, and 
from it have been recovered objects in stone and copper of 
a prehistoric period. A writer in the seventeenth century 




A. Altar. "J'^B. Window. 
CO Railine. 

jPlan of the Dolmen Chapel near Plouaret. 

says that in his time devotees regarded the dolmen as the 
tomb of a saint, and scrabbled up the soil, and carried it 
away as a remedy against sundry maladies.^ 

The Bretons have a ballad, Gwerz, concerning the former 
monument. It is a miraculous structure dating from the 
Creation of the World: "Who will doubt that it was 
1 Jievue mensudlc de Vecole d' Anthropologies Paris 1897. 

191 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

built by the hand of the Almighty ? You ask me when and 
how it was constructed. I reply that I believe that when 
the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all were created, then 
was this also made." 

Although the dolmen is no longer underground, I must 
refer to that of Confolens near S. Germain-sur-Vienne, 
because it was originally under a tumulus. It is a dolmen, 
of which only the cover, a huge mass of granite remains 
intact, in an island of the Vienne. Underneath the slab are 
sculptured a stone axe with handle, and one without, also 
a cross. The capstone rests on four pillars of the twelfth 
century. Mr. Ferguson erroneously claimed the dolmen as 
evidence that rude stone monuments continued to be erected 
till late in the Middle Ages. But, in fact, the pillars are 
not of equal length, their capitals are not in line, nor are 
their bases. What is obvious is that the rude stone sup- 
ports were removed one by one, and the Gothic pillars 
inserted in their place were cut exactly to the length 
required. Thus altered, the dolmen served as a baldachin 
or canopy over the stone Christian altar that is still in 
place beneath it. About this monument a chapel had 
been erected with apse to the east, measuring 36 feet by 
15 feet. This has been destroyed, but the foundations 
remained till recently. The cross on the capstone was cut 
when the prehistoric monument was converted to use by 
Christians. To descend to the floor of the chapel a flight of 
steps had been constructed. The chapel was dedicated to 
S. Mary Magdalen. 

In Egypt, in the Levant, cave-churches are common. 
The chapel of Agios Niketos, in Crete, is now merely a 
smoke begrimed grotto beneath a huge mass of rock on 
the mountain side. The roof is elaborately ornamented 
with paintings representing incidents in the Gospel story, 
and the legend of S. Nicolas. Though it is no longer 
employed as a church, an event that is said to have happened 
some centuries ago invests it with special regard by the 

19^ 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

natives. The church was crowded with worshippers on the 
eve of the feast of the patron, when the fires which the 
villagers who had assembled there had lighted near the 
entrance, where they were bivouacking for the night, attracted 
the attention of a Barbary corsair, then cruising off the 
island, and guided him to the spot unobserved. Suddenly 
and unexpectedly he and his crew, having stolen up the 
hill, burst upon the crowd of frightened Cretans. The 
Corsairs thereupon built up the entrance, and waited for 
day, the better to secure their captives for embarkation. 
But happily there was another exit from the cavern behind 
the altar, and by this the whole congregation escaped into 
another cave, and thence by a passage to a further opening, 
through which they stole out unobserved by the pirates. 

The rock-hewn church of Dayn Aboo Hannes, " the con- 
vent of Father John,*" in Egypt, near Antinoe, has its walls 
painted with subjects from the New Testament ; the church 
is thought to date back to the time of Constantine. 

The passion for associating grottoes with sacred themes 
is shown in the location of the site of the Nativity at 
Bethlehem. There is nothing in the Gospel to lead us to 
suppose that the event took place in a cave, though it is 
not improbable that it did so. The scene of the Annuncia- 
tion was also a rock-hewn cave, now occupied by a half-under- 
ground church, out of which flows the Virgin's Fountain. 

In Gethsemane, " the chapel of the Tomb of the Virgin, 
over the traditional spot where the Mother of our Lord 
was buried by the Apostles, is mostly underground. Three 
flights of steps lead down to the space in front of it, so 
that nothing is seen above ground but the porch. But 
even after you have gone down the three flights of steps 
you are only at the entrance to the church, amidst marble 
pillars, flying buttresses, and pointed arches. Forty-seven 
additional marble steps, descending in a broad flight nine- 
teen feet wide, lead down a further depth of thirty-five feet, 
and here you are surrounded by monkish sites and sacred 

193 N 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

spots. The whole place is, in fact, two distinct natural 
caves, enlarged and turned to their present uses with infinite 
care. Far below the ground you find a church thirty-one 
yards long and nearly seven wide, lighted by many lamps, 
and are shown the tomb of the father and mother of the 
Virgin, and that of Joseph and the Virgin herself. And 
as if this were not enough, a long subterranean gallery 
leads down six steps more to a cave eighteen yards long, 
half as broad, and about twelve feet wide, which you are 
told is the Cavern of the Agony.'' i 

Stanley says ^ : " The moment that the religion of 
Palestine fell into the hands of Europeans, it is hardly too 
much to say that as far as sacred traditions are concerned, 
it became 'a religion of caves,' of those very caves which 
in earlier times had been unhallowed by any religious 
influence whatever. Wherever a sacred association had to 
be fixed, a cave was immediately selected or found as its 
home. First in antiquity is the grotto of Bethlehem, 
already in the second century regarded by popular belief 
as the scene of the Nativity. Next comes the grotto on 
Mount Olivet, selected as the scene of our Lord's last 
conversation before the Ascension. These two caves, 
Eusebius emphatically asserts, were the first seats of the 
worship established by the Empress Helena, to which was 
shortly afterwards added a third — the sacred cave of the 
Sepulchre. To these were rapidly added the cave of the 
Invention of the Cross, the cave of the Annunciation at 
Nazareth, the cave of the Agony at Gethsemane, the cave 
of the Baptism in the Wilderness of S. John, the cave of the 
Shepherds of Bethlehem. And then again, partly perhaps 
the cause, partly the effect of the consecration of grottoes, 
began the caves of the hermits. There were the cave of S. 
Pelagia on Mount Olivet, the caves of S. Jerome, S. Paula, and 
S. Eustochium at Bethlehem, the cave of S. Saba in the ravine 

1 Geikie (C), " The Hol}^ Land and the Bible," Lond. 1887, ii. p. 8. 
* *' Sinai and Palestine," Lond. 1856, p. 150. 

194 



SUBTERRANEAN CHURCHES 

of Kedron, the remarkable cells hewn or found in the preci- 
pices of the Quarrantania or Mount of the Temptation above 
Jericho. In some few instances this selection of grottoes would 
coincide with the events thus intended to be perpetuated, 
as for example, the hiding-place of the prophets on Carmel, 
and the sepulchres of the patriarchs and of Our Lord. But 
in most instances the choice is made without the sanction, 
in some instances in defiance of, the sacred narrative." 

It is questionable whether Dean Stanley is right in 
attributing the identification of caves with sacred sites to 
Europeans, it is probable enough that the local Christians 
had already fixed upon some if not all of them. After the 
pilgrims or the Crusaders had come in their thousands and 
visited the holy sites, they returned to their native lands 
deeply impressed with the association of caves with every- 
thing that was held sacred, and this, added to the dormant 
sense of reverence for places underground consecrated to holy 
purposes that had come to them from their parents, must 
have tended to the multiplication of subterranean churches. 

In some venerated caves and in certain crypts are springs 
of water that are held to be invested with miraculous 
properties. The crypts of S. Peter in the Vatican, S. 
Ponziana and S. Alessandro, have such flowing springs. 
In the crypt of the church of Gorlitz is a well, and from 
that of the cathedral of Paderborn issues one of the sources 
of the river Pader. The Kilian spring rises in the crypt 
of the New Minster in Wtirzburg. Out of the cave of the 
monastery of Brantome, to be described in another chapter, 
streams a magnificent source. Most of the water is employed 
for the town and for the washerwomen, but one little rill 
from it is conducted to an ornate fountain, that bears the 
name of S. Sicarius (Little Cut-throat), one of the Innocents 
of Bethlehem slain by order of Herod. It is explained that 
by some means or other Charlemagne obtained his bones, 
but how the infant of a Hebrew mother acquired a Latin 
name has not been attempted to be explained. 

195 



CHAPTER VIII 

ROCK HERMITAGES 

THERE is an account in the Times' Correspondenfs 
record of Colonel Younghusband's expedition to 
Lhasa that when read haunts the imagination. It 
is the description made by Mr. Landon of a Buddhist 
monastery, Nyen-de-kyl-Buk, where the inmates enter as 
little children and grow up with the prospect of being 
literally immured in a cave from which the light of day is 
excluded as well as the society of their fellow-men, there to 
spend the rest of their life till they rot. Horace may say : 

Jubeas miserum esse, libenter 
Quatenus id facit ; 

but few Christians can feel this towards another human 
being, though of another race, religion, and under another 
clime. 

" These men," said the abbot to Mr. Landon, " live here 
in the mountain of their own free will ; a few of them are 
allowed a little light whereby reading is possible, but these 
are the weaker brethren ; the others live in darkness in a 
square cell partly hewn out of the sharp slope of the rock, 
partly built up, with the window just within reach of the 
upraised hand. There are three periods of immurement. 
The first is endured for six months, the second, upon which 
a monk may enter at any time he pleases, or not at all, is 
for three years and ninety-three days; the third and last 
period is for life. Only this morning," said the abbot, " a 
hermit died after having lived in darkness for twenty-five 

196 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

years." Mr. Landon goes on to say : " Voluntary this 
self-immolation is said to be, and perhaps technically 
speaking it is possible for the pluckier souls to refuse to go 
on with this hideous and useless form of self-sacrifice, but 
the grip of the Lamas is omnipotent, and practically none 
refuse." 

He describes a visit to the cell of one of those thus 
immured : " The abbot led us into a small courtyard which 
had blank walls all round it, over which a peach-tree reared 
its transparent pink and white against the sky. Almost on 
a level with the ground there was an opening closed with a 
flat stone from behind. In front of this window was a ledge 
eighteen inches in width with two basins beside it, and one 
at each end. The abbot was attended by an acolyte, who, 
by his master's orders, tapped three times sharply on the 
stone slab. We stood in the little courtyard in the sun and 
watched that wicket with cold apprehension. I think, on 
the whole, it was the most uncanny thing I saw in all Tibet. 
What on earth was going to appear when that stone slab, 
which even then was beginning weakly to quiver, was pushed 
aside, the wildest conjecture could not suggest. After half- 
a-minute's pause the stone moved, or tried to move, but it 
came to rest again. Then, very slowly and uncertainly it 
was pushed back, and a black chasm was revealed. There 
was a pause of thirty seconds, during which imagination ran 
riot, but I do not think that any other thing could have 
been so intensely pathetic as that which we actually saw. 
A hand, muffled in a tightly wound piece of dirty cloth, for 
all the world like the stump of an arm, was painfully thrust 
up, and very weakly it felt along the slab. After a fruit- 
less fumbling the hand slowly quivered back again into 
the darkness. A few moments later there was again one 
ineffectual effort, and then the stone slab moved noiselessly 
again across the opening. Once a day water and an un- 
leavened cake of flour is placed for the prisoner upon that 

197 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

slab, the signal is given, and he may take it in. His diver- 
sion is over for the day, and in the darkness of his cell, 
where night and day, noon, sunset, and the dawn are all 
alike, the poor soul has thought that another day of his 
long penance was over."" 

Here is another account from the pen of Sven Hedin. 

He visited the monastery of Sumde-pu-pe, where was a 
hermitage consisting of a single room five paces each way, 
built over a spring that bubbles up in the centre. Inside 
the hermit had been walled up with only a tiny tunnel 
communicating with the outside world. Once inside, he 
was never again to see the light of day nor hear a human 
voice. The man Sven Hedin saw had been immured for 
sixty-nine years, and wished to see the sun again. 

" He was all bent up as small as a child, and his body 
was nothing but a light-grey parchment-like skin and bones. 
His eyes had lost their colour, and were quite bright and 
blind. Of the monks who sixty-nine years before had con- 
ducted him to the cell not one survived. . . . And he had 
scarcely been carried out into the sunlight when he too, 
gave up the ghost." ^ 

S. Theresa once said that she had a vision of Hell. The 
torture did not consist of flames, but in being planted 
opposite a blank wall, on which to gaze through all eternity. 
The hermit in a Buddhist cell must have undergone this 
torture till all intelligence, all consciousness, save desire for 
food, was dead within him. 

There have been horrible instances of voluntary immure- 
ment in Christian Europe, and above all in the Christian 
East ; but not quite — though very nearly — as bad as this. 
Moreover, not one line, not a single word in the Scriptures 
inculcates such self-annihilation. Christ set the example 
of retirement from the world into the wilderness for forty 
days, to a mountain apart for one night, to teach men 
^ " Trans- Himalaya : Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet," Lond. 1010. 

198 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

occasionally and for a limited period, to withdraw from the 
swirl of business and the clatter of tongues. And S. Paul 
retired from the society of men after his conversion to 
gather his thoughts together, and prepare for his great 
missionary work. But that was something altogether 
different from ascetic abnegation of life and flight from its 
responsibilities. 

The peopling of the solitudes of Syria and Egypt by 
solitaries was due, not to flight from persecution, but to 
revulsion from the luxury of the great cities, and very 
largely as an escape from compulsory military service. It 
was not a new thing. Judaism had been impregnated with 
Buddhism, or at all events with Brahminism, and with 
ideas of asceticism. The Essenes and Therapeutse lived, 
the first in the time of the Maccabees upon the shores of 
the Dead Sea, and the last two centuries later, in Egypt. 
Both inhabited cells in the desert, preserving celibacy, 
renouncing property, pleasure, and delicate food, and con- 
secrating their time to the study of the Scriptures, and to 
prayer. And yet celibacy was in violation of the principles 
of Judaism, which required every man to marry, in the hopes 
of becoming a progenitor of the Messiah. Further, they 
rejected the bloody sacrifices of the law, and would have 
nothing to do with the temple at Jerusalem. We can see 
by Philo's " On the Contemplative Life " how completely 
Alexandrian Judaism had sucked in Buddhist doctrine, 
and how Therapeutic asceticism formed the bridge from 
Buddhism to Christian monachism. In the same places 
where Essenes and Therapeutae had been, there later we find 
Christian solitaries. " We can have no doubt," says 
Ferdinand Delaunay, "that the Therapeutic Convents 
which perhaps gave the first signal for conversion to the 
new faith, served also as the cradle for Christian monachism. 
History shows us, hardly a century later, this flourishing 
in the same localities on the borders of the lake Mareotis, 

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ROCK HERMITAGES 

and on the heights of Nitrea. And we cannot doubt but 
that Christian solitaries continued at Alexandria the work 
of their Jewish predecessors, and endeavoured to make 
their oracles serve for the propagation of the Gospel." 

The language in which Philo describes the Therapeutae 
might be applied to the Christian monks of Egypt. I must 
condense his rambling account. The Therapeutae abandon 
their property, their children, their wives, parents, and 
friends and homes, to seek out fresh habitations outside 
the city walls, in solitary places and in deserts. They pray 
twice in the day, at morning and evening, and the interval 
is wholly devoted to meditation on the Scriptures and 
elucidating the allegories therein. They likewise compose 
psalms and hymns to God, "and during six days each, 
retiring into solitude, philosophises, never going outside 
the threshold of the outer court, and indeed never looking 
out. But on the seventh day they all assemble, and sit 
down in order, and the eldest, who has the most profound 
learning, speaks with steadfast voice explaining the meaning 
of the laws." 

They wore but one garment, a shaggy hide for winter, and 
a thin mantle for summer. Their food was herbs and bread, 
and their drink water. Philo concludes his account thus: 
" This then is what I have to say of those who are called 
Therapeutae who have devoted themselves to the contempla- 
tion of nature, and who have lived in it, and in the soul 
alone, being citizens of heaven and of the world, and very 
acceptable to the Father and Creator of the universe because 
of their virtue; it has procured them His love as their 
most appropriate reward, which far surpasses all the gifts 
of fortune, and conducts them to the very summit and 
perfection of happiness." 

It was not among the Jews alone that the solitary life 
was cultivated. In the Serapium of Thebes were also 
1 Delaunay (F.), Moines et Sibylles, Paris, 1874, p. 316. 

200 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

heathen monks leading a very similar life. That Persian 
Manichaeism had infected Jews and heathen as well there 
can exist little doubt.^ 

In 177, in Lyons, when S. Pothinus and others were 
arrested, thrown into prison, tortured and killed for the 
Faith, there was one of the martyrs who caused offence to 
the rest because "he had long been used to a very austere 
life, and to live entirely on bread and water. He seemed 
resolved to continue this practice during his confinement, 
but Attains (another martyr), after his first combat in the 
theatre, understood by revelation that Alcibiades gave 
occasion of offence to others by seeming to favour the new 
sect of the Montanists (a Christian phase of Manichagism), 
who endeavoured to recommend themselves by their extra- 
ordinary austerities. Alcibiades listened to the admonition, 

and from that time ate of everything with thanksgiving 
to God." 2 

But, although Buddhism affected the lives of certain 
Christians, it in no way touched their faith— that life was 
the result of contact with Manichagism, which taught that 
all matter was evil, and that the flesh must be subdued, as 
essentially ungodly. The Buddhist religion in its ethics is 
the absolute reverse of the Christian. The Buddhist prays 
and tortures, and stupefies himself for purely selfish reasons, 
so as to escape reincarnation in the form of a bug, a louse, 
or a worm, by the destruction within himself of all human 
passions and inclinations. His self-torture is undertaken 
for the object of absorption into Nirvana, only to be 
reached by reducing the mind and heart to absolute in- 
difference to every animal desire, and thus to escape the 
eternal revolution of metempsychosis. "No man liveth to 
himself, and no man dieth to himself," is a maxim incom- 

^ Philo gives an account of the sacred banquets of the Therapeutse that 
strongly reminds us of the Agap« of the Early Christians. 
2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v. i. 

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ROCK HERMITAGES 

prehensible to a Buddhist. As Mr. Landon says : " The 
spiritual brigandage of the Lamas finds its counterpart in 
many other creeds, but it would be unjust not to record in 
the strongest terms the great radical difference that exists 
between Lamaism at its best and Christianity at its worst. 
There has never been absent from the lowest profession of 
our faith a full recognition of the half-divine character of 
self-sacrifice for another. Of this the Tibetians know 
nothing. The exact performance of their duties, the daily 
practice of conventional offices, and continual obedience to 
their Lamaic superiors is for them a means of escape from 
personal damnation in a form which is more terrible perhaps 
than any monk-conjured Inferno. For others they do not 
profess to have even a passing thought. Now this is a 
distinction which goes to the very root of the matter. 
The fact is rarely stated in so many words, but it is the 
truth that Christianity is daily judged by one standard, and 
by one standard only — its altruism, and this complete 
absence of carefulness for others, this insistent and fierce 
desire to save one's own soul, regardless of a brother's, is in 
itself something that makes foreign to one the best that 
Lamaism can offer."" 

One day a gnat stung S. Macarius, and he killed it. To 
punish himself for this, he went to the marshes of Scete, and 
stayed there six months. When he returned to his brethren 
he was so disfigured by the bites of the insects that they 
recognised him only by the tone of his voice. A Brahmin 
would have been filled with remorse lest he had killed a 
reincarnation of his grandmother, but the Egyptian ascetic 
only because he had given way to momentary irritation. 

One has but to read the sayings of the Fathers of the 
Desert to see that no vein of Brahminism or Buddhism had 
tinctured their faith, however deeply it may have coloured 
their practice. When plague raged in Alexandria, they 
were ready to quit their cells and hasten into the cities to 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

minister to the sick and dying ; when the faith, as they 
understood it, was menaced, to champion the truth. 

That the Egyptian hermits, flying from association with 
the world, should betake themselves to caves, is hardly to be 
wondered at. In that land the rocks are pitted with arti- 
ficial grottoes, which were the tombs of the ancient 
Egyptians, and were commodious and to be had without 
asking leave of any one. 

Twice was Athanasius obliged to fly from the fury of the 
Arians, and to take refuge among the solitaries in their 
caves. Once he was constrained to remain in concealment 
in his father's tomb, also a cavern. When he was banished 
to Treves, tradition says that he would not occupy a house, 
but sought out a grotto in a hill beyond the Moselle, and 
made his abode therein. 

The filiation between the Syrian and Egyptian solitaries 
with the hermits of Buddhism may be made out with some 
plausibility. In the East sanctity and asceticism are inseper- 
able. The smug missionary who cannot preach the Gospel 
apart from a wife, mosquito curtains and a cottage piano, 
and who travels from one station to another in a palanquin 
borne by sweating natives, does not impress the imagination 
of an Oriental, and has small chance of making converts. It 
was possibly much the same with the barbarians who over- 
whelmed the Roman Empire. To strike their imagination 
and win them to the Cross, it may belthat asceticism was a 
necessary phase of mission work. " The Spirit breatheth 
where He wills, and thou canst not tell whence He cometh 
or whither He goeth," is the Vulgate rendering of S. John 
iii. 8. But if it was at one time a necessary phase, it ceased 
to be so when the effect required was produced ; and from 
the close of mediaeval times the hermit was an anachronism. 
The life of S. Antony by Athanasius, and the Historia 
Lausiaca or " Lives of the Fathers of the Desert," by Palladius 
(died c. 430), were published in the West, and inflamed minds 

203 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

with the desire to emulate the ascetics of Syria and Egypt ; 
and speedily there were zealots who sought out retreats in 
the dens of the earth, in which to serve God in simplicity. 

Some anchorites ^ are commemorated in both the Greek 
Menaea and the Roman Martyrology more worthy to be 
esteemed Buddhists than Christian saints. Theodoret, who 
wrote A.D. 440, describes the lives of two women of 
Bercea, whom he had himself seen. They lived in a 
roofless hovel with the door walled up and plastered 
over with clay, and, with a narrow slit left for a window, 
through which they received food. They spoke to those 
who visited them but once in the year, at Pentecost ; not 
content with the squalor and solitude of their hut, they 
loaded themselves with masses of iron which bent them 
double. Theodoret was wont to peer in through the chink 
at the revolting sight of the ghastly women, a mass of filth, 
crushed double with great rings and chains of iron. Thus 
they spent forty-twoi years, and then a yearning came on 
them to go forth and visit Jerusalem. The little door was 
accordingly broken open, and they crawled out, visited the 
Holy City, and crawled back again. 

Another visited by Theodoret was Baradatus, who built 
himself a cabin on the top of a rock, so small that he 
was unable to stand upright in it, and was obliged to move 
therein bent nearly double. The joints of the stones were, 
moreover, so open that it resembled a cage and exposed him 
to the sun and rain. Theodosius, patriarch of Antioch, 
as a sensible man, ordered him to leave it. Then Baradatus 
encased himself in leather so that only his nose and mouth 
were visible. Nowhere was the imitation carried to such 
wild extravagance as in Ireland. S. Findchuais described as 
living like an Indian fakir. In his cell he suspended himself 
for seven years on iron sickles under his arm-pits, and only 

^ Properly an anchorite is a recluse, walled into his cell ; a monk is a 
solitary ; and an eremite or hermit is a dweller in the desert. 

204 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

descended from them to go forth and howl curses on the 
enemies of the King of Leinster. 

In England also there was extravagance. S. Wulfric, who 
died in 1154, encased himself in a coat of chain-mail worn 
next his skin even in winter, and occupied a cell at Hazel- 
bury in Somerset. S. Edmund of Canterbury (died 1242) 
wore a shirt of twisted horsehair with knots in it, and bound 
a cart rope round his waist so that he could scarce bend his 
body. In Advent and Lent he wore a shirt of sheet-lead. 
Thomas a Becket, when slain, was found by the monks of 
Canterbury to be wearing a hair shirt and hair-cloth drawers, 
and their admiration became enthusiastic when they further 
discovered that this hair-cloth was " boiling over " with lice. 
That this species of sanctity is still highly approved and 
commended to the imitation of the faithful we may suppose 
from the fact that Pius IX. in 1850 beatified the Blessed 
Marianna, because she was wont to sleep in a coffin or on 
a cross, and on Fridays hung herself for two hours on a 
cross attached to it by her hair and by ropes. On broiling 
hot days she denied herself a drop of water to quench an 
almost intolerable thirst. Verily Manichaeism has eaten 
like a canker into the heart of the Latin Church. 

But the early anchorites of Europe were not usually guilty 
of such extravagance. They were earnest men who sought 
by self-conquest to place themselves in a position in which 
they could act as missionaries. It was their means of pre- 
paring for the work of an evangelist. In most cases the 
apostle of a district sunk in paganism had no choice, he must 
take up his abode in a cave or in a hovel made of branches. 
In the Gallo-Roman cities the Christian bishops had grad- 
ually taken into their hands the functions of the civil 
governors. They were men of family and opulence, and lived 
in palaces crowded with slaves. They did nothing whatever 
towards the conversion of the country folk, the pagani. 
This was the achievement of the hermits. Till the peasants 

205 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

had been Christianised they would not invite the preacher 
of strange doctrines under their roofs, they looked on him 
with dislike or mistrust as interfering with their cherished 
superstitions and ancestral customs. He could not force 
his society on reluctant hosts. 

S. Beatus, a British or Irish missionary, settled into a 
cave above the lake of Thun, dreaded by the natives as the 
abode of a dragon. He succeeded in his work, and died 
there at the advanced age of ninety. In 1556 the Protes- 
tant Government of Berne built up the mouth of the grotto 
and set soldiers to repel the pilgrims who came there. 
Now a monster hotel occupies the site, and those who go 
there for winter sport or as summer tourists know nothing 
or care less about the abode of the Apostle whence streamed 
the light of the Gospel throughout the land. 

Below the terrace that surrounds the height on which 
Angoul^me is built is the cave of S. Cybard (Eparchius 
died 581). An iron gate prevents access to it, and the path 
down to it is strewn with broken bottles and sardine tins. 
No one now visits it. But within, where are an altar and 
the mutilated statue of the saint, lived the hermit who in 
the sixth century did more than any other man to bring 
the people of the Angoumois out of darkness into light. 
But, as already said, when the work of evangelisation was 
done, then the profession of the hermit was no longer re- 
quired, and such anchorites as lingered on in Europe 
through the Middle Ages to our own day were but de- 
generate representatives of the ancient evangelical solitaries. 

A few years ago hermits abounded in Languedoc. They 
took charge of remote chapels on mountain tops, or in caves 
and ravines. They were always habited as Franciscan 
friars, but they were by no means a reputable order of men, 
and the French prefets in conjunction with the bishops 
have suppressed them. 

They were always to be seen on a market day in the 

206 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

nearest town, not infrequently in the taverns, and I in the 
evening festooning along the roads on their way back to 
their hermitages, trolling out convivial songs spiced with 
snatches of ecclesiastical chants. " Mon Dieu," says Ferdi- 
nand Fabre,^ " I know well enough that the Free Brothers 
of S. Francis, as they loved to entitle themselves, had 
allowed themselves a good deal of freedom, more than was 
decorous. But as these monastically-habited gentry in no 
way scandalised the population of the South, who never 
confounded the occupants of the hermitages with the cures 
of the parishes, why sweep away these fantastic figures who, 
without any religious character, recruited from the farms, 
never educated in seminaries, peasants at bottom, in no way 
priests, capable, when required, to give a helping hand with 
the pruning knife in the vineyard, or with the pole among 
the olives, or the sickle among the corn. Alas ! they had 
their weaknesses, and these weaknesses worked their ruin." 
The salt had lost its savour, wherewith could it be 
seasoned ? 

It was not in Southern France alone that the part of 
the hermit was played out. An amusing incident in the 
confession of Fetzer, head of a gang of robbers who infested 
the Rhine at the end of the eighteenth century, will go some 
way to show this. The gang had resolved on " burgling " a 
hermit near Lobberich. Had he been an eremite of the 
old sort, the last place in which robbers would have expected 
to find plunder would be his cell. But in the eighteenth 
century it was otherwise, and this particular hermit kept 
a grocer's shop, and sold coffee, sugar, and nutmegs. The 
rogues approached the cell at night, and as a precau- 
tion one of them climbed and cut the rope of the bell 
wherewith the hermit announced to the neighbourhood 
that he was about to say his prayers. Then they broke 
open his door. In Fetzer's own words, ''The hermit was 
1 Barnabd, Paris, 1899. 

207 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

not at home, but as we learned, had gone a journey in 
connection with his grocery business. In the hermitage, 
however, we found several men placed there to keep guard 
over his goods. We soon settled them, beat them with 
our cudgels and cast them prostrate on the floor. Then 
we burst open all the chests and cupboards, but found little 
money. There was, however, plenty of tea and sugar. As 
we were about to leave, a fearful storm came on, and without 
more ado we returned into the hermitage to remain there 
till it was overpast. In order to dissipate the tedium, we 
ransacked the place for food, and found an excellent ham 
and wine in abundance. I assumed the place of host. 
Serve the meal ! Bring more ! I ordered, and we revelled 
and shouted and made as great a din as we liked. In the 
second room the hermit had a small organ. I seated 
myself at it, and to make the row more riotous I played as 
well as I was able. The laughter and the racket did not 
cease till morning broke. Then I dressed myself up in the 
hermit's cowl and habit, and so went off with my comrades." ^ 

I remember visiting a hermit in 1868 who lived on a ledge 
in the cliff above S. Maurice in the Vallais, where was a cave 
that had been occupied by the repentant Burgundian King 
Sigismund. He cultivated there a little garden, and I have 
still by me a dried bouquet of larkspur that he presented to 
my wife on our leaving after a pleasant chat. A pilgrimage 
to the cave was due on the morrow, and he had just returned 
from the town whither he had descended to borrow mugs 
out of which the devotees might drink of the holy spring 
that issued from the cave. 

The Wild Kirchlein, in Appenzell, is now visited rather 
by tourists than by pilgrims. A huge limestone precipice 
rises above the Bodmenalp, that is a paradise of wild flowers. 
A hundred and seventy feet up the cliff* gapes a cavern, and 
at its mouth is a tiny chapel. It is reached by what is now 

^ Der neue Pitaval, Leipzig, xviii. p. 182. 

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ROCK HERMITAGES 

a safe pathway and over a bridge cast across a chasm. But 
formerly the ascent could not be made without danger. In the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, some Alpine shepherds, 
who had reached the cave, reported that they had seen in it 
the remains of an altar. This aroused interest, and in the 
summer of 1621 a Capuchin named Tanner ascended to the 
cave, blessed, and consecrated it as a place of pilgrim- 
age. He said mass there and preached. He was shortly 
afterwards called away to Freiburg, and for thirty years 
the cave was disregarded and neglected. But at the end of 
that time Tanner returned to Appenzell, and interested 
the parish priest Ulmann in it. When war broke out 
between Schwyz and Zurich in 1656, Ulmann concealed the 
treasures of the church in the cave. This drew attention to 
it, and shortly after an altar was furnished with what was 
needful, and on the Feast of S. Michael in 1657 mass was 
again said there. Various matters — loss of friends, and con- 
tests with the secular authorities — wearied Ulmann, and he 
resolved on retiring as. a hermit to the cave in the cliff, 
taking with him, however, an attendant. The swallows left, 
the winter storms came on, yet he braved the wind and cold, 
and remained a tenant of the cave for two winters and as 
many summers ; but then, by order of the Bishop, he left 
to act as chaplain to a convent in Lindau. There he spent 
nine years, till falling ill, he felt a craving for the purer air 
of his Appenzell home, and obtained leave to return and 
again re-tenant the beloved cave. In his last will he 
bequeathed the Upper Bodmen Alp that was his ancestral 
inheritance for the maintenance of the Holy Grotto. After 
his death the little chapel with its tower was built, and a 
Capuchin friar occupied the hermitage. In 1853, the last 
hermit there, Brother Antony Fassler, fell down the preci- 
pice whilst gathering herbs. Since then there has been no 
such picturesque object to lead the visitor through the 
recesses of the cavern and show the stalactites ; that office 

209 o 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

is now performed by the innkeeper of the hotel on the 
Alp. 

The cave of S. Verena is one of the favourite pilgrim 
resorts in Switzerland. It is near Soleure, and lies in a 
valley of a spur of the Jura. According to the received 
tradition she ran after the Theban legion — in modern 
parlance was a camp-follower, but deserted the soldiers here, 
and took up her abode in this grotto. There is no mention 
of this hermitage earlier than 1426, and the legend has 
grown up since. That the cave was much more ancient, 
and was invested with holy awe, is no doubt true. In fact, 
there is reason to believe that Verena was a German 
goddess.^ Her symbol is a comb, and in the wall are cut 
these words : 

Pectore dum Christo, dum pectine servit egenis, 
Non latuit quondam sancta Verena cave ; 

that is to say, serving Christ and combing the heads of the 
poor, the holy Verena lived unconcealed in this grotto. 

The way to the chapel is through woods, the valley closing 
in till bold rocks are reached. In a niche is a statue of the 
Magdalen, with the inscription, " I sleep, but my heart 
waketh.*" A few steps further is a representation of the 
Garden of Gethsemane. From this a long and steep stair 
leads up to the chapel, cut deep in the rock, with an altar 
in it. Behind this is the Holy Sepulchre carved in the 
stone, in the seventeenth century by the hermit Arsenius. On 
the other side of the chapel a long stone stair leads again into 
the open air. Under this stair is a hole in the rock into 
which the hand can be thrust. According to a "pious 
belief" the Saint one day was much tormented with the 
remembrance of the military, and longed to resume her 
pursuit of them, and she gripped the rock, which yielded like 
wax to her fingers. 

1 Rocbolz, Dei Gaugbttinnen, Leipzig, 1870. 

^10 



EOCK HEUMITAGES 

Another Swiss rock hermitage is that of the Magdalen 
near Freiburg, in the cliff on the right bank of the Saane. 
At the close of the seventeenth century it was enlarged by 
a hermit, John Baptist Dupres, and his comrade John Licht. 
They worked at it for twenty years. Dupres dug a number 
of cells out of the sandstone, a kitchen with a chimney, a 
dining-room, a church, and a stable. The church measures 
63 feet long, 30 feet wide, and is 22 feet high. He built a 
tower to his church, and gave his chimney the height of 
90 feet so as to ensure that his fire should not smoke. The 
hermit Dupres was drowned in 1708 as he was rowing over 
the river a party of scholars who had come to visit him. 
No hermit lives there now. His residence is occupied by 
a peasant with his family. 

On the Nahe, that flows into the Rhine, is the little town 
of Oberstein, whose inhabitants are nearly all employed in 
cutting and polishing agates, sardonyxes, and various other 
stones prized by ladies. Precipitous cliffs arise above the 
town, and contract the space on which houses could be 
raised, and these rocks are crowned by two ruined castles, 
the Older and the Newer Oberstein. About half-way up the 
face of the cliff, 260 feet above the river, can be seen a tiny 
church, to which ascent is made by flights of steps. The 
old castle rises above this, and stands 360 feet above the 
river, but its remains are reduced to a fragment of a tower. 
Separated from it by a notch in the rocks is the new castle 
that was destroyed by fire about thirty- five years ago. 

In the old castle lived in the eleventh century two 
brothers, Wyrich and Emich von Oberstein. Both fell in 
love with the daughter of the knight of Lichtenberg, but 
neither confessed his passion to the other. At last, one day 
Emich returned to the castle to announce to his brother 
that he had been accepted by the fair maid ; Wyrich, in an 
impulse of jealousy, caught his brother by the throat and 
hurled him down the precipice. His conscience at once 

211 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

spoke out, and in the agony of his remorse he had resort to 
a hermit who bade him renounce the world, grave for him- 
self a cell in the face of the melaphyre clay — the hermit did 
not give to the rock its mineralogicai name — and await a 
token from heaven that he was forgiven. Accordingly 
Wyrich von Oberstein scrambled up the face of the clift' as 
high as he could possibly go, and there laboured day after 
day till he had excavated for himself a grotto in which to 
live and expiate his crime. And a spring oozed out of the 
rock in his cave, and was accepted by him as the promised 
token of pardon. After a while he obtained that a little 
church should be consecrated which he had constructed at 
the mouth of his cave. On the day that the bishop came 
to dedicate the structure he was found dead. 

What is supposed to be his figure, that of a knight in 
armour, is in the chapel. This latter was rebuilt in 1482, 
and the monument came from the older structure. The 
chapel has been handed over to the Calvinists for their 
religious services, which is the humour of it, as Nym would 
have said. 

Beside the highroad {route nationale) from Brive to 
Cahors, but a very little way out of the town, is a mass 
of red Permian sandstone perforated with caves. In 1226 
S. Anthony of Padua was at Brive, and resided for a while 
in one of them. Since then it has been held sacred and 
occupied by Franciscans, who erected a convent above it ; 
in so doing they cut into and mutilated some very ancient 
artificial workings in the sandstone for the contrivance of 
rock habitations. The cave, however, was neglected when 
the Franciscans were expelled at the Revolution, but they 
returned in 1875 and rebuilt or greatly enlarged their 
convent, only to be expelled again in 1906. The grottoes, 
now converted into chapels to the number of four, are in 
a line under the superstructures, that in the middle the 
actual hermitage. This, moreover, has been cut out of the 

212 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

rock artificially, at a higher level than the others, that are 
natural and are untenable, owing to the incessant drip of 
water from the roofs. The first cave is dedic-ated to S. 
Francis of Assisi, but it is a rock shelter rather than a cave. 
It is natural, but in one corner a small water-basin has been 
scooped. The second cave is mainly natural, but partly 
artificial ; it is dedicated to Notre Dame Auxiliatrice. The 
third, reached by steps, is wholly artificial, and before the 
stairs were built to lead to it, was inaccessible save by a 
short ladder. It placed the occupant in safety from inva- 
sion by wolves or other objectionable visitors. It measures 
21 feet by 15 feet. This, which was the habitation of 
S. Anthony, communicated with the two lower caves, one on 
each side, by lateral openings. 

The fourth cave is that of Des Fontaines, in which are 
basins of water cut in the rock, receiving the everlasting 
drip from above. 

It is impossible to give one tithe of the hermitages in 
caves that are to be seen in Europe ; but a few words may 
be devoted to La Sainte Beaume in Var, where, according to 
tradition, Mary Magdalen spent the end of her days. The 
tradition is entirely destitute of historical basis, and rests on 
a misconception. Scott has described the cave with toler- 
able accuracy in " Anne of Geier stein," though he had not 
seen it himself. 

The cave is in the range of cretaceous limestone that runs 
east and west to the north-east of Marseilles, and at La 
Beaume Sainte reaches the height of 3450 feet. The wild 
flowers, the fine forest, and the white rocks impart great 
interest to the visit without consideration of historical and 
legendary association. The botanist will find the globe 
flower, the anemone, the citisus, the man, the bee, the fly 
orchids, and the Orchis militaris in considerable abundance ; 
also banks of scented violets. 

The grotto is at a considerable height above the valley. 

213 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

According to the legend, as already said, Mary Magdalen 
spent the close of her life here, and numerous anchorites 
settled in the caves around. In the fifth century Cassian 
placed monks in the grotto, but they were driven away by 
the barbarians, and La Sainte Beaume fell into complete 
oblivion till the thirteenth century. 

The cave is lofty and spacious, not a little damp, and 
water drips from the roof. To protect the altar a baldachin 
has been erected over it. At the extreme end is a raised 
dais of natural rock, on which the saint is supposed to have 
made her bed. Another cave is that of the Holy Sepulchre, 
which was formerly occupied by the monks of S. Cassian. 
From the Sainte Beaume a path leads upwards to the Saint 
Pilon, the highest pinnacle of the rock which here rises to a 
point, out of which grow wild pinks and aromatic shrubs, 
and where falcons make their nest. According to the 
legend, Mary Magdalen was elevated by the hands of angels 
to this point seven times a day, there to say her prayers, 
which proceeding surely entitles her to a place as the 
patroness of aviation. 

At Souge, on the Loir, a little below the troglodyte town 
of Troo already described, half-way up the cliff is the cave- 
chapel of S. Amadou. It is 45 feet deep and 15 feet wide. 
The altar is at the end surmounted by a niche containing 
a statue of the saint, and to this formerly pilgrimages were 
made from all the valleys round. But this is a thing of 
the past, for it is now private property and converted into 
a cellar. What is peculiar about this chapel is that it is 
surrounded by a gallery also rock-hewn, and it was customary 
for the pilgrims to pass round the chapel through this 
gallery before entering it. 

At Villiers, near Vendome, is the chapel of S. Andrew, 
that was formerly inhabited by a hermit. It is divided 
into two chambers. That on the left is the chapel proper, 
with its altar. Above the other opening is a bas-relief of 

214 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

the Crucifixion. When levelling the floor of this hermitage 
a few years ago, so as to convert it into a commodious 
private dwelling, a number of skeletons were found in 
graves sunk in the rock. 

Montserrat is famous throughout Spain on account of its 
statue of the Virgin, Avhich is supposed to have been made 
by S. Luke, and brought to Barcelona in the year 50 by 




Plan of the Chapel of S. Amadou. 

S. Peter, which, of course, is nonsense. S. Luke never painted, 
and S. Peter never visited Spain. This extraordinary 
mountain derives its name from its saw-like appearance, 
Mons serratus. It consists of pudding-stone, " a strange 
solitary exiled peak, drifted away in the beginning of things 
from its brethren of the Pyrenees, and stranded in a 
different geological period.'' Mr. Bayard Taylor thus 
describes the summit after a two hours' climb. '' Emerging 
from the thickets we burst suddenly upon one of the wildest 
and most wonderful pictures I ever beheld. A tremendous 
wall of rock arose in front, crowned by colossal turrets, 

215 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

pyramids, clubs, pillars, and ten-pin shaped masses, which 
were drawn singly, or in groups of incredible distinction, 
against the deep blue of the sky. At the foot of the rock 
the buildings of the monastery and the narrow gardens 
completely filled and almost overhung a horizontal shelf of 
the mountain, under which it again fell sheer away down, 
down into misty depths, the bottom of which was hidden 
from sight. In all the galleries of memory I could find 
nothing resembling it." ^ 

The spires of rock range about 3300 feet high, jumbled 
together by nature in a sportive mood. Here and there, 
perched like nests of the solitary eagle, are the ruins of 
former hermitages, burnt by the French under Suchet in 
July 1811, when they amused themselves with hunting the 
hermits like chamois in the clifi's, hung the monks of the 
monastery, plundered it of all its contents, stripped the 
Virgin of her jewellery, and burnt the fine library. Hitherto 
the monks, when periodically dressing the image, had done 
so with modestly averted eyes, but Suchet 's soldiers had no 
such scruples. This image had been entrusted in the ninth 
century to a hermit, Jean Garin. Now Riguilda, daughter 
of the Count of Barcelona, was possessed by a devil, in 
another word, crazy, and was sent to be cured by the image 
or the hermit. A temptation similar to that of S. Anthony 
followed, but with exactly the opposite result. To conceal 
his crime, Jean Garin cut off Riguilda's head, buried her, 
and fled. Overtaken by remorse he went to Rome, and 
confessed his sin to the Pope, who bade him become a beast, 
never lifting his face towards heaven until the hour when 
God himself would signify his pardon. 

Jean Garin went forth from the Papal presence on his 

hands and knees, crawled back to Montserrat, and there 

lived seven years as a wild beast, eating grass and bark, 

and never looking up to heaven. At the end of this time 

1 Taylor (B.), "Byways of Europe," Lond. 1869, i. p. 23. 

216 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

his body was entirely covered with hair, and it so fell out 
that the hunters of the Count snared him as a wild animal, 
put a chain round his neck, and brought him to Barcelona. 
Here an infant of five months old, on beholding the strange 
beast, uttered a cry and exclaimed, " Rise up, Jean Garin, 
God has pardoned thee." Then, to the amazement of all, 
the beast arose and spoke in a human tongue. Happily 
the story is no more true than that the image was made 
by S. Luke. It is an old Greek story of S. James the 
Penitent, with the penance of Nebuchadnezzar tacked on 
to it. 

Forbes says : " The traveller should visit the ruined 
hermitages of Sta. Anna, San Benito, not forgetting La Roca 
Estrecha, a singular natural fissure ; the highest and most 
interesting of all is the S. Jeronimo. These retreats satis- 
fied the Oriental and Spanish tendency to close a life of 
action by repose, and atone for past sensualism by mortifi- 
cation. The hermitages were once thirteen in number; 
each was separate, and with difficulty accessible. The 
anchorite who once entered one, never left it again. 
There he lived, like things bound within a cold rock alive, 
while all was stone around, and there he died, after a living 
death to the world, in solitude without love. Yet they 
were never vacant, being sought for as eagerly as apartments 
in Hampton Court are by retired dowagers. Risco says 
that there were always a dozen expectants waiting in the 
convent the happy release of an occupant. To be a hermit, 
and left to live after his own fashion, exactly suited the 
reserved, isolated Spaniard, who hates discipline and sub- 
jection to a superior."^ 

^ "Handbook of Spain," Lond. 1845, p. 496. A visit to the image is 
heavily indulgenced. Pope Paul V. granted remission of all his sins to any 
one who entered the confraternity of our Lady of Montserrat. Mr, B. 
Taylor says of the image : " I took no pains to get sight of the miraculous 
statue. I have already seen both the painting and the sculpture of 
S. Luke, and think him one of the worst artists that ever existed." 

217 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

Above Cordova, also in the Sierra, are rock hermitages 
serving in Andalusia the same purpose that did those of 
Montserrat in Catalonia. These also never wanted a tenant, 
for in the Iberian temperament, media et lahor^ violent 
action alternating with repose is inherent. 

In Italy, Subiaco must not be left without a notice. It 
was hither that S. Benedict fled when aged fourteen. He 
chose a cave as his abode, and none knew what was his 
hiding-place save a monk, Romanus, who let down to him 
from the top of the rock the half of the daily loaf allotted 
to himself, giving him notice of its being ready for him by 
ringing a little bell. Here, once, troubled by the passions 
of the flesh, Benedict cast himself into a thicket of thorns, 
and afterwards planted there two rose-trees which still 
flourish. This is now converted into a garden, and near 
by all the monks of Subiaco are buried. 

Near La Vernia, a favourite retreat of S. Francis, is a 
deep cleft in the rocks, and a cave to which he was wont to 
retire at times. One friar only, Brother Leo, was permitted 
to visit him, and that once in the day with a little bread 
and water, and once at night; and when he reached the 
narrow path at the entrance, he was required to say Domine 
labia mea aperies ; when, if an answer came, he might enter 
and say matins with his master. In a second cave the saint 
slept. Outside this is the point of rock from which according 
to the Fiorette : " Through all that Lent, a falcon, whose 
nest was hard by his cell, awakened S. Francis every night 
a little before the hour of matins by her cry and the flapping 
of her wings, and would not leave off* till he had risen to say 
the office ; and if at any time S. Francis was more sick than 
ordinary, or weak, or weary, that falcon, like a discreet and 
charitable Christian, would call him somewhat later than 
was her wont. And S. Francis took great delight in this 
clock of his, because the great carefulness of the falcon 
drove away all slothfulness, and summoned him to prayers ; 

218 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

and moreover, during the daytime, she would often abide 
familiarly with him." 

The Warkworth hermitage in Northumberland was made 
famous by Bishop Percy's ballad. 

In "Rambles in Northumberland and on the Scottish 
Border," 1835, it is thus described. "The hermitage of 
Warkworth is situated on the north bank of the Coquet, 
and about a mile from the castle. Leaving the castle yard 
and passing round the exterior of the keep, a footpath 
leads down the declivity on the north side of the river. 
Entering a boat and rowing a short distance along the 
river, the visitor is landed at the foot of a pleasant walk 
which leads directly to the Hermitage. This secluded 
retreat consists of three small apartments, hollowed out of 
the freestone cliff which overlooks the river. An ascent of 
seventeen steps leads to the entrance of the outer and prin- 
cipal apartment, which is about eighteen feet long, its width 
being seven feet and a half, and its height nearly the same. 
Above the doorway are the remains of some letters now 
illegible, but which are supposed when perfect to have 
expressed, from the Latin version of the Psalms, the 
words : Fuerint mihi lacrymae meae panes die ac nocte. 
The roof is chiselled in imitation of a groin, formed by two 
intersecting arches ; and at the east end, where the floor is 
raised two steps, is an altar occupying the whole width of 
the apartment. In the centre, immediately above the altar, 
is a niche in which there has probably stood a figure either 
of Christ or of the Virgin. 

" Near the altar, on the south side, there is carved in the 
wall a monumental figure of a recumbent female. In a niche 
near the foot of the monument is the figure of a man, con- 
jectured to be that of the first hermit, on his knees, with 
his head resting on his right hand, and his left placed upon 
his breast. On the wall, on the same side, is cut a basin 
for the reception of holy water ; and between the principal 

219 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

figure and the door are two small windows. At the west 
end is a third small window, in the form of a quatrefoil. 

" From this apartment, which appears to have been the 
hermit's chapel, a doorway opens into the corner one, 
about five feet wide, and having also an altar at the east end, 
with a basin for holy water cut in the wall. In the north 
wall of this inner chamber an arched recess is cut, the base 
of which is of sufficient length and breadth to admit a 
middle-sized man reclining. An opening, cut slantwise 
through the wall dividing the chamber, allows a person 
lying in this recess to see the monument in the chapel. In 
the same wall there is rather an elegantly-formed window, 
which admits the light from the outer apartment. To the 
north of the inner chamber is a third excavation, much 
smaller than the other two, which led to an outer gallery to 
the west, commanding a view of the river. This gallery, 
which has been much injured by the fall of a part of the 
cliff*, is said to have been arched like a cloister. After 
returning from these dimly-lighted cells to open day, and 
passing through a stone archway, a flight of steps cut in the 
side of the rock leads to the hermit's garden at the top."" 

S. Robert of Knaresborough, who died 1218, was the son 
of one John Thorne of York, of which city his brother was 
mayor. Leland informs us that he forsook " the lands and 
goodes of his father to whom he was heire as eldest sonne."*' 
Leaving his home he came to Knaresborough, where he 
found a certain knight ensconced in a cave scooped out of 
the rock by the side of the Nidd, and dignified by the name 
of S. Giles's Chapel. But the knight had had enough of 
it, and instante diabolo quitted his cave and made it over 
to Robert Thorne, and " returned like a dog to his vomit," 
which is a monastic way of putting the fact that he re- 
turned to his wife and family. 

Robert, however, did not spend an entire year in the 
cave, for certain latrunculi having stolen h?/s bird, hys chese, 

220 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

hys sustenance^ he quitted the grotto — doubtless at the 
approach of winter — and established himself in much more 
comfortable quarters at Bramham. He was certainly a 
hermit who boiled his peas, for we are told that he main- 
tained four men-servants; two were occupied in tilling his 
farm, one attended to his personal wants — was, in fact, 
his valet — and one went about with him on his begging 
expeditions. 

The cave is 10 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 7 feet 
high. There is an image of a knight at the entrance, by 
some supposed to be more modern ; it is, however, said 
that S. Robert did much himself to adorn and enlarge 
his chapel. 

It was in this cave that Eugene Aram and Richard 
Housman murdered Daniel Clarke on 8th February 1745, 
for the sake of some jewellery and plate they had induced 
him to bring to S. Robert's Chapel with him. 

It was not till fourteen years after that the body of 
Clarke was found, and Mrs. Aram declared that her husband 
and Housman had murdered him ; Housman turned King's 
evidence, and Aram was hung on 16th August 1759. 

Roche hermitage in Cornwall occupies a spire of rocks 
of schorl that shoots 100 feet above the surrounding moor. 
Built into the rocks is a little chapel, and beneath it is 
the hermit's cell. This seems to have been occupied con- 
tinuously down to the Reformation, and various stories are 
told of the tenants. 

There was once a steward under the Duchy named 
Tregeagle. He was a peculiarly nefarious agent, and very 
hard upon the tenants. His spirit is still supposed to 
roam over the moors, and not to be able to find peace 
till he has dipped the water out of Dozmare Pool with a 
nutshell. 

Once, pursued by devils, he fled for sanctuary to Roche, 
and thrust his head through the east window of the chapel, 

221 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

but, being a broad-shouldered spirit, could force his way in 
no further. The devils were baffled and withdrew. But 
Tregeagle's position was not desirable. The wind, the r^in, 
and the hail lashed that portion of his person that re- 
mained exposed, and he dared not withdraw his head from 
sanctuary lest the devils should be on him again. At every 
cutting blast he howled, and his howls so disturbed the 
hermit of Roche, that he found it impossible to sleep or to 
attend to his prayers on windy nights. Unable to liberate 
Tregeagle himself, he sent for the monks of Bodmin, and 
they imposed on the wretched steward the task afore- 
mentioned, and assured him immunity from pursuit whilst 
engaged upon it. 

"Robin Hood's Stable," in Nottinghamshire, at Pappe- 
wick, of which Throsby gives an illustration in his 
'' History of the County," 1797, was in all probability a 
hermitage. Mr. W. Stevenson writes: "I am convinced, 
from its nearness to the great old road, its position due 
south, and its evidences of columns and arches, that it is 
an old cell or anchorite's cave of equal, if not superior age, 
to the neighbouring abbey. The interior would make a 
good picture, as the dampness of the rock is favourable to 
green vegetation in sportive lines and patches on the warm 
colours and the shadows of the rock. It is an artist's dream. 
Time, during the lapse of centuries, has made sad havoc 
with the entrance. Originally it had a level cutting running 
into the hill until a face of rock was won in which to make 
a door and hew an underground apartment. 

"The hollow of this cutting has been raised, the banks 
rounded down, the roof over the door has fallen ; the hand 
of destruction has worked back into the cave, and all evi- 
dence of the door and its whereabouts has vanished. The 
floor is loaded with sand and blocks fallen from the roof. 
The floor being so buried renders it difficult perfectly to 
judge of the depth of the apartment." What a habitation 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

for a rheumatic hermit ! The " sportive lines and patches *" 
of vegetation suggest sportive tweaks and twinges of the 
loins. 

Two miles from Repton is Anchor Church, where are the 
remains of a hermitage in a singular rocky bank, rising 
abruptly above the pastures on the verge of the Trent. 
"The summit is clothed with overhanging woods, forming 
only a portion of the high grounds, but the suddenness of 
the change which the scenery derives from the appearance 
of precipitous and broken rocks, occurring in the midst of 
a soft and beautiful region of pastoral luxuriance, is very 
striking. A curious series of chambers, communicating with 
each other, has been at some distant period beyond tradi- 
tion excavated in that portion of the rock which is most 
naked and precipitous ; and from this circumstance the site 
has been designated Anchor Church, signifying the residence 
of a hermit. At a distance it bears a very close resemblance 
to a Gothic ruin ; the rude openings formed to admit light 
into the several cells, and the ruggedly fashioned doorway 
aiding, at first sight, the appearance of an artificial pile of 
grey antiquity. The rock is found principally to consist 
of rough grit-stone, and of a congeries of sand and pebbles. 
The Trent, which now flows at a short distance, formerly 
ran close under the rock, as is indicated by a dead pool 
of water situate near its foot, and communicating with the 
channel of the river. 

" A tall flight of steep steps rudely fashioned of large 
unshapen blocks of stone, conducted to the entrance of 
the hermitage, and the dim light within its hoary, moss- 
grown, sloping walls is admitted through irregularly formed 
apertures, pierced through the dense body of the rock, and 
command magnificent views of the subjacent scenery." ^ 
In the month of August 1742, when occasion arose for 

1 Bigsby (R.), " Historical and Topographical Description of Repton 
in the County of Derby," Lond. 1854. 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

setting a post in a " Mercat House " at Royston in Hert- 
fordshire in order to place a bench on it for the convenience 
of the market women, the men in digging struck through 
the eye or central hole of a millstone, laid underground, 
and on raising this found that it occupied the crown of a 
cave sixteen feet deep, as appeared by letting down a plumb 
line. There was a descent into it of about two feet wide, 
with holes cut in the chalk at equal distances, and succeed- 
ing each other like the steps of a ladder. It was accurately 
circular. They let a boy down, and from his report of its 
passing into another cavity, a slender man with a lighted 
candle descended, and he confirmed the report, and added 
that the second cave was filled with loose earth, which, how- 
ever, did not quite touch the wall, which he could see to right 
and left. 

The people now conceived the notion that a great 
treasure was concealed here, and some workmen were 
employed to enlarge the passage of descent. Then with 
buckets and a well-kerb, they set to work to clear it, and 
drew up the earth and rubbish that filled the cave. When 
they came to the floor of the descending passage they 
ran a long spit downwards and found that the earth was 
still loose. The vast concourse of people now became 
troublesome, and the workmen were obliged to postpone 
further operations till night. 

After much time and labour had been expended, the 
cave was cleared, but no really scientific examination of 
it was made till 1852, when Mr. Beldam drew up a report 
concerning it, which he presented to the Royal Society of 
Antiquaries. The cave is bell-shaped, and from the floor 
to the top of the dome measures 25 J feet. The bottom 
is not quite circular, but nearly so, and in diameter is from 
17 feet to 17 feet 6 inches. A broad step surrounds it, 8 
inches wide and 3 feet from the floor. About 8 feet above 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

the floor a cornice runs round the walls cut in a reticulated 
or diamond pattern two feet wide. Almost all the space 
between the step and this cornice is occupied with sculpture, 
crucifixes, saints, martyrs, and subjects not easy to explain. 
Vestiges of red, blue, and yellow are visible in various 
places, and the relief of the figures has been assisted by 
a dark pigment. In various parts of the cave, above and 
below the cornice, are deep cavities or recesses of various 
forms and sizes, some of them oblong, and others oven- 
shaped, of much the same character as those found in the 
French caves. High up are two dates cut in the chalk, 
in Arabic numerals, that have been erroneously read 1347 
and " Martin 1350 February 18," but these should be re- 
spectively 1547 and 1550, as Arabic numerals were not 
in use in England in the fourteenth century, and the name 
of Martin and the February are distinctly sixteenth century 
in character. The figure carving was not done by the 
same hand throughout. 

Apparently the cave was originally a shaft for burial 
or for rubbish, and a hole in the side and floor that Dr. 
Stukeley took for a grave was nothing but a continuation 
downwards of the ancient shaft, as is proved by what 
has been found in it. But in mediaeval times the puticolus 
was enlarged and converted into a hermitage, and a hermit 
is known to have occupied it till the eve of the Reformation, 
for in the Churchwarden's book of the parish of Bassing- 
borne, under the date 1506, is the entry, " Gyft of^Od. reed, 
off a Hermytt depting at Roiston in ys 'pysh^'' It is true 
that this entry does not absolutely fix the residence of 
the hermit at the cave, but it is hardly probable that there 
were two hermitages in so small a town. 

The cave was probably filled in with earth in 1547 and 
1550, when the inscribed dates were affixed. After which 
its existence was forgotten, and the Mercat House was 

225 p 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

erected over it before 1610. The carvings have been supposed 
to belong to the period of Henry II. and Richard Coeur-de- 
Lion, but it is not possible to put them earlier than the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, at all events such as 
represent the Crucifixion. It is possible, however, that 
some of the kingly or knightly figures may be somewhat 
earlier. 

Stukeley was quite convinced that the Royston cave 
was the oratory of the Lady Rohesia, daughter of Aubrey 
de Vere, who succeeded his father in 1088, but there 
exists no evidence that she ever lived at Royston. The 
place takes its name from Rohesia, daughter of Eudo 
Dapifer. 

In 1537, says Froude, while the harbours, piers, and 
fortresses were rising in Dover, " an ancient hermit tottered 
night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, 
and the tapers on the altars before which he knelt in his 
lonely orisons made a familiar beacon far over the rolling 
waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the 
sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by 
the workmen that his light was a signal to the King''s 
enemies " (a Spanish invasion from Flanders was expected), 
"and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three 
of them waylaid the old man on his way home, threw him 
down, and beat him cruelly." ^ 

The following notice appeared in the 'Daily Kxjpress of 
9th June 1910. "A subterranean chamber with a spiral 
staircase at one end and a Gothic roof has been discovered 
at Greenhithe. It is believed to have been a hermit's cell."" 

The hermit left a pleasant memory behind him when he 
disappeared from England, perhaps just in time before 
complete degeneration set in as in France and Germany, 
Italy and Spain. Shakespeare, whenever he introduces him, 
does so in a kindly spirit, and represents him as a consoler 
1 " History of England," vol. iii. p. 256. 

226 



ROCK HERMITAGES 

of the afflicted and a refuge to the troubled spirit. Bj 
Spenser also he is treated with affection. 

"Towards night they came unto a plaine 
By which a little hermitage there lay. 
Far from all neighbourhood^ the which armoy it may. 

And nigh thereto a little chappel stoode, 

Which being all with ivy overspred 

Deckt all the roofe, and, shadowing the roode, 

Seem'd like a grove faire braunched over hed : 

Therein the hermit, which his life here led 

In streight observance of religious vow. 

Was wont his hours and holy things to bed ; 

And therein he likewise was praying now, 

Whenas these knights arrived, they wist not where nor how." 

I do not recall any harsh words spoken of the departed 
hermit. After the Reformation it was felt that a factor in 
life was gone that could be ill spared. 

In these days when we live in a hurricane of new ideas, 
in the stress of business, we cannot understand the attrac- 
tiveness of the peace of a cell away from the swirl of the 
storm, or the value of the hermits as guides of life. When 
the hermit was swept away, into his place as counsellor 
of the troubled stepped the witch, and to her those had 
recourse who had previously sought the eremite. The 
influence of the witch was always for evil, that of the hermit 
was usually good. The troubled soul desires a confidant 
and an adviser. The parish priest is not always spiritually 
minded, and is not always disinterested. What is hid from 
the wise and prudent is revealed to babes, and for the 
guidance of distracted consciences, the healing of wounded 
spirits, the words of the childlike hermit were a boon. 
However, he is gone past recall, and into his room have 
stepped the lawyer who demands six-and-eightpence for a 
word of advice, and the doctor whose charges are propor- 
tionate to the rental of our houses. 

227 



CHAPTER IX 

ROCK MONASTERIES 

THE early Syrian and Egyptian hermits would have 
become a sect of manichaean heretics but for the 
popularity of the profession and the Arian persecution. 

In quitting the world they cut themselves off from the 
churches. They no more took part in its assemblies, partici- 
pated in the sacraments, nor observed the sacred seasons. 
Paul, the first hermit, deserted the society of men when aged 
fifteen, and lived till the age of a hundred and ten in solitude 
without ever having partaken of the Bread of Life. S. Mary 
of Egypt spent forty-seven years in the Wilderness, stark 
naked, covered with hair like a wild beast, and only received 
the Viaticum when dying, by the chance of a priest passing 
that way. A fifteenth century statue of her, nearly life-size, 
is in the National Museum at Munich, removed from the 
Cathedral of Augsburg as indelicate. S. Antony spent 
twenty years in a sort of cistern, and only twice a year 
received loaves, let down from above through the roof. 
Certainly all that time he was voluntarily excommunicate. 
If S. Hilarius ever made sacramental communion we are not 
told, but we do know that he was for ever hiding himself 
from where were his fellow-men, in wilds and i oases, and 
where there were no Christian churches. 

In the desert, times and seasons slipped away, and became 
confounded, so that by the first hermits neither Easter nor 
the Lord's Day were observed. In the Gospel, the works of 
mercy, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, 
clothing the naked, visiting the sick and prisoners, are 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

appointed as the means of deserving a reward in heaven, 
but the anchoi'ites neglected every one, cut themselves adrift 
from the chance of performing them, and sought to merit 
heaven in their own way. Christ declared, " Except ye eat 
the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have 
no life in you," but they wilfully lived apart from the 
sacramental life as surely as any modern Quaker. , 

But when crowds of refugees'Trom the duties and pleasures 
of life sought the desert, they ceased to be solitaries, and 
organisation on a monarchical system under an abbot became 
necessary; and when bishops and priests fled to them, or 
were banished and sought them, during the Arian persecu- 
tion, they came to plume themselves as champions of ortho- 
doxy, and conformed to Catholic usage, assembling on the 
Lord's Day for prayers and the Eucharist. When the 
fashion set in for deserting the world, floods of men, women, 
and children threw themselves into it, and flowed into the 
desert during a century with resistless force. Pachomius, 
who died at fifty-six, reckoned three thousand monks under 
his rule; the monasteries of Tabenna soon included seven 
thousand, and S. Jerome affirms that as many as fifty 
thousand were present at the annual gathering of the 
general congregation of monasteries that followed his rule. 

There were five thousand on the mountain of Nitria ; near 
Arsinoe the Abbot Serapion governed ten thousand. It 
has even been asserted that there were as many monks in 
the deserts of Egypt as inhabitants in the towns. The 
immense majority of these religious were cenobites ; that is to 
say, they lived in the same enclosure, and were united under 
an elected head, the abbot. The cenobitical life rapidly 
and necessarily superseded that of the solitary. In fact the 
monks were now no more solitaries than are the jackdaws in 
a cleft, or the bees in a hive, but unlike the jackdaws, they 
were under discipline, and unlike bees were without a sting. 

It was not mere love of an indolent life and a desire to 

229 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

escape from military service that swelled the numbers in the 
desert. The condition of the decaying Roman world led 
men to despair of the Commonwealth, and of the possibility 
of their being able to save their own souls in the midst of 
the general corruption. " The people were exhausted by 
compulsory taxes, to be spent in wars which did not concern 
them, or in Court luxury in which they had no share. In 
the municipal towns liberty and justice were dead. The 
curials, who were responsible for the payment of the public 
moneys, tried their best to escape the unpopular office, and 
when compelled to serve wrung the money in self-defence out 
of the poorer inhabitants by every kind of tyranny. Private 
profligacy among all ranks was such as cannot be described 
in any modern pages. The regular clergy of the cities were 
able to make no stand against the general corruption of the 
age because — at least if we are to trust such writers as 
Jerome and Chrysostom — they were giving themselves up to 
ambition and avarice, vanity and luxury ; and, as a back- 
ground to all these seething heaps of decay, misrule and 
misery, hung the black cloud of the barbarians, waxing 
stronger and stronger so that the wisest Romans saw clearly 
as the years rolled on, they would soon be the conquerors of 
the Caesars and the masters of the Western world. 

" No wonder, if in such a state of things, the minds of 
men were stirred by a passion akin to despair, which ended in 
a new and grand form of suicide. It would have ended often, 
but for Christianity, in such an actual despair as that which 
had led in past ages more than one noble Roman to slay 
himself, when he lost all hope for the Republic. That the 
world — such at least as they saw it then — was doomed. 
Scripture and their own reason taught them. They did not 
merely believe, but saw, in the misery and confusion, the 
desolation and degradation around them, that the world was 
passing away, and the lust thereof, and that only he who did 
the will of God could abide for ever. They did not merely 

230 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

believe, but saw that the wrath of God was revealed from 
Heaven against all unrighteousness of men. Under these 
terrible forebodings, men began to flee from a doomed 
world, and try to be alone with God, if by any means they 
might save each man his own soul in that dread day."^ 

In the year 336 Athanasius was in exile at Treves. He 
is traditionally held to have there occupied a cave beyond 
the Moselle. The Bishop Maximinus received him with 
honour. Early in his episcopate Athanasius had visited 
the congregation of monks on the Upper Nile, and he was 
enthusiastic in his admiration of their manner of life. It is 
supposed that whilst at Treves he began to write the " Life 
of S. Anthony," if indeed he was the author of that popular 
work. Here he is thought to have been visited by Maxen- 
tius, Bishop of Poitiers, and brother of the Bishop of Treves, 
bringing with him Martin, then a friend and pupil of S. 
Hilary, this latter (at the time a wealthy noble of Poitiers. 
And from the discourse of Athanasius, if this meeting 
actually took place, the imagination of Martin was fired 
with ambition to reproduce in Europe the life of the fathers 
of the desert in Egypt. 

Anyhow, to this residence of Athanasius at Treves, " one 
may trace the introduction into the Western Church of the 
principle and laws of ascetic self-renunciation, which, though 
they had run to great extremes in the Nitrian desert and in 
the valley of the Nile, assumed noble form when the idea took 
possession of the more phlegmatic temperament and practi- 
cal energies of the West. Without discussing the vexed 
question of the authorship of the ' Life of S. Anthony,' 
which is referred by many traditional testimonies to Athana- 
sius, we think it obvious, from the 'Confessions' of Augus- 
tine, that the religious circles at Treves had been strongly 
moved by the self-abandonment and entire consecration to 
the religious life of the exiled bishops. It was here, while 
1 Kingsley (C), "The Hermits," Lond. 1868. 

231 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

reading the 'Life of S. Anthony' that the friends of 
Augustine at length yielded themselves to God." ^ 

Martin was at Poitiers in 361 when S. Hilary had returned 
from exile to his bishopric and to his wife and daughter. 
He had been living the eremitic life on the isle of Galli- 
naria, shaped so like a snail, off the coast of Albenga, and 
had nearly poisoned himself with trying to eat hellebore 
leaves. On reaching Poitiers, he told his old friend the 
Bishop, that he desired to follow the monastic life in his 
diocese, and obtained his cheerful consent. Some way up 
the Clain, five miles from Poitiers, the little river glides 
through a broad valley, with meadows on its left bank often 
overflowed, but with a ridge of conglomerate rocks pierced 
with caves on the right bank. Here Martin settled, and 
there can exist no manner of doubt that his first settlement 
was in one of these grottoes, though at a later period the 
monastery was moved to the further side of the river, when 
the caves proved inadequate to harbour all the candidates 
for the religious life who placed themselves under his 
direction. One of his monks, however, named Felix, refused 
to quit his cave that is now shown, and in which he died 
perhaps, in an inaccessible cliff that is surmounted by a cross. 

The friable conglomerate has yielded to storm and rain, 
and much of it has crumbled down ; but the openings to the 
caves are visible from below, where the slopes are purple 
and fragrant with violets and, later, pink with primulas, 
and the rocks are wreathed with clematis. A pure spring 
bursts forth at the foot and works its way through beds of 
forget-me-not and marsh marigold to the Clain. 

Martin had been ordained exorcist and then priest. 

His most trusted disciples were Felix, Macarius, and 
Florentius. As already said, except in the Gallo-Roman 
cities, Christianity did not exist. The country-folk were 

1 Reynolds (H. R,), " Athanasius, his Life and Life-work," Lond., R.T.S., 
1889, p. 54. 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

pagans. Martin lifted up his eyes and saw that the fields 
were white to harvest. He preached throughout Poitou 
and La Vendee, and visited the coast to the isles of Yeu and 
Re. He travelled on foot, or mounted on an ass, sought 
every village and hamlet, to sow the seed of the Word of 
God, and where he could not go himself, he sent his 
disciples. Liguge, his monastery, became a centre of 
evangelisation to the country round. It was the first 
monastery planted on Gaulish soil. It was ruined by the 
Saracens in 732, and again by the Normans in 848. It was 
rebuilt in 1040. But Liguge never had a worse enemy than 
one of its abbots, Arthur de Cosse. He made public con- 
fession of Calvinism ; gave up the abbey to be pillaged, 
sold its lands for his own advantage, and did everything in 
his power to utterly ruin it. It owed its restoration to the 
care of Francois de Servier, Bishop of Bayonne. 

Liguge was, however, destroyed at the French Revolution. 
In 1864 it was acquired by the Benedictines, and rebuilt on 
a large scale. It was enriched with a valuable library, and 
became a nursery of Christian art and literature. But the 
law of 1901 banished the monks, and the vast building is 
now empty, as the State has not so far found any use for it. 

In the year 971 the episcopal throne of Tours was vacant, 
and the citizens at once decided on securing Martin as their 
bishop. But when he arrived on foot, dust-covered, with 
shaggy hair, the bishops assembled to consecrate protested 
against the election. It was customary to choose a bishop 
from among the nobility and the wealthy. Defensor, the 
Bishop of Angers, signalised himself by his opposition. He 
absolutely refused to consecrate the poor dishevelled monk. 
But when the lector opening the psalter at hazard read out 
the words, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast 
thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies : that thou 
mightest still the enemy and the defender " (defensor),^ the 

* So in the old Gallican Version ; in the Vulgate the word is Ultor. 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

people raised a great shout, God himself had spoken, and 
the bishops had to yield to the popular will. Martin was 
then aged fifty-four. 

No sooner was he installed than he cast about him to 
establish on the banks of the Loire a monastic colony such 
as he had founded at Liguge. He found a place where 
in later times rose the great abbey of Marmoutier, the 
wealthiest in France, and with a church that was called the 
Gem of Touraine. But then it was merely a chalk cliff 
rising above the Loire on its right bank, two miles above 
Tours, and on the summit had stood the old Gaulish city 
of Altionos. The Romans had transferred the capital of 
the Turones to its present site, and had given it the name 
of Caesarodunum. But Althionos was probably not wholly 
abandoned, poor Gauls still dwelt there in their huts, and 
nothing had been done to bring them into the fold of Christ's 
Church. 

The cliff with its caves had already been sanctified. It 
had been a refuge in time of persecution, and there 
S. Gatianus, the first Bishop of Tours, in the third century 
had sheltered. But now Martin and his disciples set to 
work to enlarge and remodel the subterranean habitations ; 
they scooped out a chapel, and they formed a baptistry. 

In 853 the Northmen came up the Loire and massacred 
a hundred and sixteen of the monks. Only twenty-four 
escaped. In 982 Marmoutier was refounded by Eudo, 
Count of Blois, and the noble basilica built below the rock 
was consecrated by Pope Urban 11. in 1095. The vast 
wealth of the abbey led to enlargements and splendour of 
architectural work ; but in 1562 the Huguenots wrecked it, 
burned the precious library with all its MSS., broke down 
the altars, and shattered the windows. Its complete destruc- 
tion, however, was due to the Revolution, when in 1791 it 
was completely pulled down, nothing left of the splendid 
church but the tower and a portion of the northern transept 




Le Trou Bourou 

A cave fortress on the Beune. The hole through which the man is peering was used for defence 
of the steep ascent to the entrance. Note the arrangement for barring the door. 




Rock Baptistery of S. Martin, Marmoutier 

Excavated and occupied by S. Martin, Bishop of Tours, a.d, 371-396. On the right-hand side is 
the well, on the left the font for immersion. The niches in the wall are for the holy oils. 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

that was glued to the rock. The oratory of S. Martin 
was levelled to the rock on which it stood. 

But the fact of the transfer of the monastery to the flat 
land below the cliff had this effect, that the old caves, the 
original cradle of Marmoutier, were neglected and for- 
gotten. They were overgrown by brambles, crumbled away, 
and none visited them. 

In 1859 the oratory in which S. Martin had prayed was 
restored or rather rebuilt from its foundations. 

One night when Martin was' engaged therein in reading 
the Scriptures, the door was burst open and in broke a party 
of masq ueraders. They had disguised themselves as Jupiter, 
Minerva, and Mercury, and some damsel devoid of modesty 
presented herself before the startled modesty of the bishop 
without disguise of any sort, as Venus rising from the foam 
of the sea. Some were dressed as Wood Druses very much 
like the devils of popular fancy. Mercury was a sharp, 
shrewd wag, and bothered the saint greatly, as he admitted 
to Sulpicius, his biographer, but Jupiter was a " stupid sot." 
At the rebuke of Martin the whole gang good-humouredly 
withdrew. 

I was in this cell on Mid Lent Sunday, when hearing a 
noise outside, I looked forth and saw a party of masqueraders 
frolic and frisk past on their way to a tavern where was to 
be a costume ball. So goes the world. Some fifteen 
hundred and thirty years ago the Gospel was being preached 
in Tours, as it is now, men and women were striving to 
follow its precepts as now, and tomfoolery was rampant 
in Tours fifteen hundred and thirty years ago as it is now. 

And now, as to the remains in the rock of the primitive 
Marmoutier. The grottoes of S. Gatianus and of the 
disciples of S. Martin have been cleared out. There is a 
little arcade of three round-headed unadorned arches cut in 
the cliff that served as a cloister, and there is the old 
baptistry where Martin admitted his converts into the 

235 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

Christian Church, sunk in the rock for adult and complete 
submersion, and the niches in the wall for the sacred oils. 
Adjoining is the cave in which the neophyte unclothed and 
afterwards reclothed himself. There are graves sunk in 
the rock, where some of his disciples were laid, and there 
is the chapel partly in the rock and partly rebuilt, dedicated 
later by Gregory of Tours to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, 
but of which in after times a different story was told — 
namely that seven brothers who had been devoted disciples 
of Martin prayed him when he was dying that they might 
speedily follow, and on the anniversary of his death they 
all seven fell asleep. 

There is another cave that escaped destruction at the 
Revolution, though opening out of the transept of the 
church. It is that of the Penitence of Brice. 

Brice had been adopted as a child by Martin, and brought 
up by him to be a monk. ]^ut Brice had no liking for the 
religious life, and was very disrespectful to his master. One 
day a sick man came to see Martin and asked of Brice 
where the saint was. "The fool is yonder,'" answered he, 
" staring at the sky like an idiot." 

One day Martin rebuked Brice for buying horses and 
slaves at a high price, and even providing himself with 
beautiful young girls. Brice was furious, and said. " I am 
a better Christian than you. I have had an ecclesiastical 
education from my youth, and you were bred up amidst 
the license of a camp." 

On the death of S. Martin, the people of Tours, tired 
of having a saint at their head, with proverbial fickleness 
chose Brice as his successor because rich — he was said to 
have been the son of the Count of Nevers — and because he 
was anything but a saint. As bishop he showed little im- 
provement, and gave great scandal. Lazarus, Bishop of 
Aix, accused him before several councils. At last a gross 
outrage on morals was attributed to him, and caused his 

236 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

flight. A nun gave birth to a child, and confessed that 
she had been seduced by the bishop. Brice either ran away 
from Tours or was deposed. A priest named Justinian 
was elected in his room. On the death of Justinian, 
Armentius succeeded him. Brice remained in exile till the 
death of Armentius, and then ventured back to Tours to 
reclaim his episcopal throne. He was allowed to reascend 
it, and he occupied it for seven years; and the cave in 
which he did penance for his frailties and the scandal he 
had caused is intact to this day. He died, after having 
been nominally bishop for forty-seven years, the greater 
portion of which time he had spent in exile. The Church 
of Rome is certainly very charitably disposed in numbering 
him among the saints. Why he should be regarded as the 
patron of wool-combers one cannot see,^ but as such he 
enjoyed some popularity. 

There is yet another cave in the Marmoutier rocks that 
may be mentioned ; it is that of S. Leobard. Leobard 
was a saint of the sixth century, a native of Auvergne, 
who, coming to pray at the tomb of S. Martin, resolved 
on spending the rest of his days in one of the cells 
of Martin's monastery in the rocks. He settled into an 
untenanted cave, which he enlarged, and lived in it for 
twenty-two years. At the extremity he dug a deep pit 
in which he desired to be buried standing with his face 
to the East, thus to await the coming of the Lord. 
But although his desire was fulfilled, the monks of 
Marmoutier would not let his body rest there, but hauled 
it up, that it might become an object of devotion to the 
faithful. 

^ The following prayer is recommended by the Archbishop of Tours 
to the faithful for use. "Nous vous supplions, Seigneur, par I'inter- 
cession de S. Brice, Eveque et Confesseur, de conserver votre peuple qui 
se confie en votre amour ; afin que, par les vertues de notre Saint Pontife, 
nous mentions de partager avec lui les joies celestes." The virtues of 
Brice ! 

237 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

The Abbey of Brantome on the Dronne (Dep. Dordogne) 
was originally, like Marmoutier, a cavern monastery, and 
like those of Marmoutier, the monks waxing fat, they 
kicked and abandoned the grottoes for a stately structural 
monastery. The beautiful Romanesque tower of the church 
stands on top of a rock that is honeycombed with their 
cells. The church, consisting of nave only, is of marvellous 
beauty, early pointed, and built on a curve, as there was 
but little space to spare between the river and the cliffs. 
Unhappily church and cloister were delivered over to be 
" restored " by that arch- wrecker, Abbadie, who has done 
such incalculable mischief in Perigord and the Angoumois, 
and his hoof-mark is visible here. The monks, not content 
with a sumptuous Gothic abbey, pulled it down and built 
one in the baroque style, and had but just completed it 
when the Revolution broke out "and the flood came and 
swept them all away.*" In the court behind this modern 
structure is to be seen the cliff perforated with caves ; it 
has, however, been cut back to the detriment of these, 
so that we have them shorn of their faces. Nevertheless 
they are interesting. The old monolithic chapel of the 
monastery remains, turned into a pigeonry, and with 
the steps left that gave access to the pulpit, and two 
pieces of sculpture on a very large scale, cut out of the 
living rock. One represents the Crucifixion with SS. 
Mary and John; the other has been variously explained 
as the Last Judgment or the Triumph of Death. It 
perhaps represents the Triumph of Christ over Death. 
His figure and the kneeling figures of His Mother and 
the Beloved Disciple were, however, never completed, and 
remain in the rough. 

Beneath the figure of Christ is Death, figured by a head 
surmounted by a crown of bones, and a crest representing 
a spectre armed with a club. On each side is an angel 
blowing a trumpet. Below are ranged a dozen heads of 

jess 




The Triumph of Christ over Death 



Sculpture in the cave monastery of Brant6me, The figure of Christ was never completed. 
Below is a head crowned with bones, for Death, with Time as crest. Below, in boxes, are the 
dead, of various degrees. 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

popes, bishops, princes, knights, and ladies, in boxes to 
represent graves. 

In the front of this huge piece of sculpture are trestles 
planted in the ground to support planks to serve as tables 
when the Brantomois desire to have a banquet and a dance. 

The sculpture above described is not earlier than the 
sixteenth century. A few paces from it, in the same line 
and almost under the tower, is another grotto called La 
Bahayou — that is to say " of the statue," and it probably 
at one time enshrined an image of a saint. On the left 
of the subterranean church is the fountain of the little 
Cut-throat already mentioned. S. Sicarius, whose relics were 
the great "draw" to Brantome in the Middle Ages, was 
supposed to have been one of the Innocents slain by Herod ; 
and the relics were also supposed to have been given to 
the abbey by Charlemagne. As there was no historic 
evidence that Charles the Great ever had a set of little 
bones passed off on him as those of the Innocent, or that 
he ever made a present to the abbey of a relic, it will 
be seen that a good deal of supposition goes to the story. 
As I have said before, how it was that the child of a 
Hebrew mother acquired a Latin name, and that one 
so peculiar, we are not informed. 

Outside the town gate are other large excavations that 
are supposed to have formed a temple of Mithras, but 
this is mere conjecture. The largest is now employed as 
a Ttr — a shooting gallery. That there were buildings 
connected with it is seen by the holes in the rock to receive 
rafters. 

S. Maximus, Bishop of Riez, who died in 460, was born 
at Chateau Redon, near Digne, and he entered the monastic 
life on the isle of Lerins, under S. Honoratus, and when 
that saint was raised in 426 to the episcopal throne of 
Aries, Maximus succeeded him as Abbot of Lerins. But 
this monastery was becoming crowded, and Maximus pined 

S39 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

for the solitary life, so one day he took a boat, crossed 
to the mainland, and plunged into the wild country about 
the river Verdon, that has sawn for itself a chasm through 
the limestone ; where it debouches, he planted himself at 
a place since called Moustier-Ste-Marie. The lips of the 
crevasse are linked by a chain, with a gilt star hanging 
in the midst, little under 690 feet above the bed of the 
torrent. No one knows when this star was hung there, 
but it is supposed to have been an ex voto of a chevalier, 
de Blac. Within the ravine, reached by a narrow goat- 
path, were caves in the cliffs, and into one of these Maxim us 
retired in 484 and was speedily followed by other solitaries. 
The caves are still there, the faces walled up, but as at 
Liguge, and as at Marmoutier, and as at Brantome, so was 
it here. As the monastery grew rich, the solitaries crawled 
out of their holes into which the sun never shone, and 
erected their residence at the opening of the ravine. A 
chapel remains, founded by Charlemagne, but rebuilt in 
the fourteenth or fifteenth century, reached by a stair 
protected by a parapet. 

Moustier was famous at the close of the seventeenth and 
beginning of the eighteenth century for its faience, with 
elegant designs and good colouring. Specimens are now 
extremely scarce. Two vases of this ware may be seen on 
the altar of the chapel. The principal potters there were 
Pierre Fournier, Joseph Olery, Paul Rouse, and Feraud. 
They usually signed their work with their initials. Maximus 
was j ust a century later than Martin ; the fever for imitat- 
ing the lives of the Fathers of the Deserts of Egypt was 
then in full heat. His master, Honoratus, had been wont 
to escape from his island monastery and hide in a cave in 
the glowing red porphyry rocks of the Esterelle. I can 
understand his retiring thither, above a sea blue as the 
neck of a peacock, among glowing red rocks, and masses of 
pines, and heather, and arbutus, and every kind of fragrant 

240 




^^.^ 



Caves of Ligugz 

The primitive rock monastery of S. Martin. It was abandoned later when the monks moved 
to the further side_ of the river; but Felix, a disciple of S. Martin, remained and died in the 
cave, now inaccessible, below the cross. 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

herb, and where, when only snowdrops are appearing in 
England, the spires of white asphodel are basking in the 
sun. 

Near Nottingham are the "Popish Holes,'"' close to the 
river Lene. They are thus described by Stukeley. " One 
may easily guess Nottingham to have been an ancient town 
of the Britons ; as soon as they had proper tools they fell 
to work upon the rocks, which everywhere oifer themselves 
so commodiously to make houses in, and 1 doubt not first 
was a considerable collection of this sort. What is visible 
at present is not so old a date as their time, yet I see no 
reason to doubt but it is formed upon theirs. There is a 
ledge of perpendicular rock hewn out into a church, houses, 
chambers, dove-houses, &c. The church is like those in 
the rocks of Bethlehem and other places in the Holy Land ; 
the altar is natural rock, and there has been painting upon 
the wall, a steeple, I suppose, where a bell hung, and regular 
pillars. The river winding about makes a fortification to 
it, for it comes at both ends of the cliff, leaving a plain in 
the middle. The way into it was by a gate cut out of 
the rock, and with an oblique entrance for more safety. 
Without is a plain with three niches, which I fancy their 
place of judicature, or the like. Between this and the 
castle is a hermitage of like workmanship.'" 

These remains pertain to a cell called S. Mary le Rock, a 
quarter of a mile west of the Castle, and belonged to Lenton 
priory. It was abandoned after the time of Edward IV., and 
is supposed to have come down in a perfect form to the time 
of the Civil War, when it was much injured by the Puritans 
as Papists' holes. A good many illustrations exist of it 
after the Civil Wars, as a large folding plate in Throsby's 
and Thoroton's " History of Nottinghamshire," 1797, but 
there is none to show what it was before. 

It possesses a pigeonry much like that at Brantome, but 
on a smaller scale, that wiseacres have pronounced to be a 

241 a 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

Columbarium, not for doves, but for the reception of jars 
containing the ashes of the dead, and have attributed this 
dovecote to Roman times. Mr. William Stetton, a local 
antiquary, writing in 1806, stated that the excavation 
" appeared to have been made in the earliest ages of Chris- 
tianity, when the converts resorted for secrecy and security 
to grottoes or caves, and similar places of retirement and 
seclusion. The style is evidently Roman. The whole 
interior appears to have been invested with a thin plaster- 
ing, or perhaps, only a wash, which has been painted in 
various colours in mosaic devices. The altar still remains 
pretty perfect notwithstanding the ravages of time and 
wanton depredation. A Roman column still adorns the 
north side of it, but its corresponding one on the south 
side has long been destroyed.'' 

An architect, John Carter, in the Gentleman's Magazine 
for 1860, stated that the " arrangements of the excavations 
are monastical ; and we, with much satisfaction, trace out 
the infirmary, refectory, dormitory, chapter-house, and the 
chapel. The latter place gives two aisles, divided by per- 
forated arches, with headways in the manner of groins, and 
at the east end an altar." 

There can be no question now that although the original 
excavations were possibly enough Roman-British, the 
Papists' holes, as we have them now, are truly, as Mr. 
Carter says, monastical. 

How absurd old fashioned antiquaries were may be proved 
by the fact that the chimney that warmed the monks, and 
up which went the smoke from their kitchen, was pronounced 
to be a bustum, a flue employed for the cremation of the 
dead. As to the "Roman" column, that also is mediaeval. 

Curzon, in his " Monasteries of the Levant," 1849, says 
" the scenery of Meteora (Mt. Pindus in Albania) is of a 
very singular kind. The end of a range of rocky hills seems 
to have been broken off by some earthquake, or washed 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

away by the Deluge, leaving only a series of twenty or 
thirty tall, thin, smooth, needle-like rocks, many hundred 
feet in height; some like gigantic tusks, some shaped like 
sugar-loaves, and some like vast stalagmites. These rocks 
are surrounded by a beautiful grassy plain, on three sides 
of which grow groups of detached trees, like those of an 
English park. Some of these rocks shoot up quite clean 
and perpendicularly from the smooth green grass, some are 
in clusters, some stand alone like obelisks. Nothing can 
be more strange and wonderful than this romantic region, 
which is unlike anything I have ever seen before or since. 
In Switzerland, Savoy, the Tyrol, is nothing at all to be 
compared to these extraordinary peaks. At the foot of 
many of these rocks there are numerous caves and holes, 
some of which appear to be natural, but most of them are 
artificial ; for in the dark and wild ages of monastic 
fanaticism, whole flocks of hermits roosted in these pigeon- 
holes. Some of these caves are so high up in the rocks 
that one wonders how the poor old gentlemen could ever 
get up to them, whilst others are below the surface, and 
the anchorites who burrowed in them, like rabbits, frequently 
afforded rare sport to parties of roving Saracens; indeed, 
hermit- hunting scenes seem to have been a fashionable 
amusement previous to the twelfth century. In early Greek 
frescoes and in small stiff pictures with gold backgrounds, 
we see many .frightful representations of men on horseback 
in Roman armour, with long spears, who are torturing 
and slaying Christian devotees. In these pictures the monks 
and hermits are represented in gowns made of a kind of 
coarse matting, and they have long beards, and some of 
them are covered with hair ; these, I take it, were the ones 
most to be admired, as in the Greek Church sanctity is 
always in the inverse ratio to beauty. All Greek saints are 
painfully ugly, but the hermits are much uglier, dirtier, 
and older than the rest. They must have been very fusty 

MS 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

people beside, eating roots and living in holes* like rats and 
mice." 

On the summit of these needles of rock are monasteries. 
Of these there were twenty-four, but now seven alone remain 
tenanted by monks. The sole access to them is by nets 
let down by ropes and hauled up by a windlass, or as an 
alternative in the case of that of S. Barlaam, by a succession 
of ladders. 

As an example of a rock monastery and'church in Egypt, 
I may quote the same author's description of that of Der 
el Adra, or of the Fully, situated on the top of Gebel el 
Ferr, where a precipice about 200 feet in height rises out 
of the waters of the Nile. 

The access to it is by a cave or fissure in the rock, the 
opening being about the size of the inside of a capacious 
chimney. "The abbot crept in at a hole at the bottom, 
and telling me to observe where he placed his feet, he began 
to climb up the cleft with considerable agility. A few 
preliminary lessons from a chimney-sweep would have been 
of the greatest service to me, but in this branch of art 
my education had been neglected, and it was with no small 
difficulty that I climbed up after the abbot, whom I saw 
striding and sprawling in the attitude of a spread eagle 
above my head. My slippers soon fell off upon the head 
of a man under me. At least twenty men were scrambling 
and puffing underneath him. Arms and legs were stretched 
out in all manner of attitudes, the forms of the more distant 
climbers being lost in the gloom of the narrow cavern up 
which we were advancing. Thence the climb proceeded up 
a path. At the summit beside the monastic habitations 
was the church cut out of the rock, to which descent is 
made by a narrow flight of steps." 

Mr. Curzon gives a plan of this church as half catacomb 
or cave, and one of the earliest Christian buildings which 
has preserved its originality. 

244 



ROCK MONASTERIES 

The caves of Inkermann in the Crimea have been already 
alluded to. Here is a description of a subterranean aban- 
doned monastery and church. 

"Having traversed a passage about fifty feet long, we 
reached a church, or rather the remains of one; for a 
portion of the living rock in which these works were cut 
had fallen and carried with it half of this curious crypt. 
Its semicircular vaulted roof, and the pillars in its corners, 
indicated it to be of Byzantine origin ; while a Greek sculp- 
tured cross, in the centre of the roof, told that it was a 
temple dedicated to that religion. The altar, and any 
sculpture which might have existed near it, are gone, and 
have long since been burnt into lime, or built into some 
work at Sevastopol. Beyond the church we found a large 
square apartment, entered by another passage, and looking 
over the valley of Inkermann. A few more cells, resembling 
those on the stairs, composed the whole of this series of 
excavated chambers, the arrangements of which at once pro- 
claimed them to have been a monastery. These were the 
cells, the refectory, and the church. There is nothing in 
their construction as a work of art ; yet there is an absence 
of that roughness and simplicity which exist in many 
caverns of the opposite mountain, and which indicate their 
being of a much earlier date than these."" ^ 

1 Scott (C. H.), " The Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Crimea," Lond. 1854, 
p. 280. 



245 



CHAPTER X 

CAVE ORACLES 

STANDING upon the pinnacle upon which is planted 
the marvellous Romanesque cathedral of Le Puy, and 
looking north, is seen in the distance the basaltic 
mass of Polignac crowned by a lofty donjon. 

That mass of columnar basalt was occupied and held 
sacred in Roman times, and was dedicated to Apollo. In 
the courtyard of the castle is a well, PAlbime it is called, 
that descends to the depth of 260 feet, and there still exists 
an enormous stone mask of the solar god that closed it, and 
from the mouth of which oracles were given. How these 
were produced is now made clear. In the side of the well is 
a chamber cut out of the rock that concealed a confederate 
who uttered the response to the questioner, and the voice 
came up hollow and with reverberation betwixt the gaping 
lips of stone, to overawe and satisfy the inquirer. 

" Before the old tribes of Hellas created temples to the 
divinities," says Porphyry in his treatise ' On the Cave of 
the Nymphs,"" "they consecrated caverns and grottoes to 
their service in the island of Crete to Zeus, in Arcadia to 
Artemis and Pan, in the isle of Naxos to Dionysos." 

And from caves issued the most famous Grecian oracles, 
and the mysteries were often celebrated in them. The cave 
in which Zeus as an infant was concealed on Mount Ida 
naturally became sacred. Kronos had received the Kingdom 
of the World on condition that he should rear no male 
children. Accordingly when one was born he ate it. But 
when Zeus arrived, his mother gave Kronos a stone to eat 

246 



CAVE ORACLES 

in place of the child, and hurried off the babe to Crete, 
where it was nourished in a cave by the Corybantes, who 
sounded cymbals and drums to drown his cries. 

There was a Charonion at Hierapolis, an account of 
which we get from Apulaeus and Dio Cassius. It was deep. 
From the orifice, which was surrounded by a balustrade, 
escaped so dense a vapour that animals held in it died, and 
men who inhaled it were stupefied. The priests who 
ministered to the oracle professed to be immune, but Strabo 
tells us that they simply held their breath when they 
stooped over the fumes. He who desired to consult the 
oracle was for a while placed on a platform above the 
opening. 

On the flank of Mount Citheron was a cave dedicated to 
the Nymphs. Those who desired to inquire of them entered 
the grotto, when it was supposed that the Nymphs inspired 
them with a knowledge of the future; and such persons 
were entitled Nympholeptes. The corresponding expression 
among the Latins was lymphatici^ expressive of the pale 
and exhausted condition in which they were when they 
issued from the 'cave. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea says : 
" There are exhalations that produce drowsiness and procure 
visions ; " and Apulaeus says : " Due to the religious fury 
they inspire, men remain without eating or drinking, and 
some become prophets and reveal future things." 

Apollo was the god of prophecy above all others. He 
was born at Delos, according to the poets ; and it is there 
that the Homeric poems say was one of his most ancient 
sanctuaries. Thence, doubtless, issued the twenty famous 
oracles at the epoch of the colonisation. At Delphi the 
priestess was seated on a tripod over a crack in the rock, 
from which exhaled mephitic vapours that rendered her 
delirious, and her incoherent exclamations were reduced 
into hexameters by the attendant priests. But there was 
also at Delos the Manteion, the prophetic grotto. This 

247 



CAVE ORACLES 

has of late years been discovered along with the foundations 
of the temple. The Manteion is a gallery, naturally bored 
in the rock. The winds that penetrate it cause strange 
pipings and hollow moans, that served as an accompani- 
ment to the oracles. But the most remarkable of these 
caverns was that of Trophonios in Beotia. Pausanius tells 
us the legend of its origin. The Beotians had suffered from 
drought for two years and sent to consult the oracle of 
Delphi. The reply received was that they must refer 
themselves to Trophonios at home. But who was the 
party ? The Beotians had never heard of him. Then the 
oldest of their deputies recalled having once pursued a 
swarm of bees and followed it till it disappeared in a cave. 
That doubtless was the spot, and there, after the offering 
of sacrifices, Trophonios obligingly showed himself, and 
explained who he was and what were his powers. Since 
that time his oracle was much consulted, and happily an 
account of how he, or his priests, befooled visitors to the 
cave has been given us by Pausanius from his personal 
experience. 

Those who wished to consult the oracle had first to 
purify themselves by spending some days in the sanctuary 
of the Guardian Spirit and of Fortune, to abstain from 
warm baths, but to bathe in the river Hercynia; they 
might eat as much as they liked of the meat offered in 
sacrifice. "You are conducted during the night to the 
river, where you are bathed and rubbed with oil by two 
boys of the age of thirteen. Then the priests take posses- 
sion of you, and you are conducted to two fountains side 
by side. You drink of one, that of Oblivion, so as to dis- 
engage your thoughts from what is past, then that of 
Remembrance, to assure your recollecting what is about to 
take place. After having addressed your prayers to a 
statue, you go to the oracle, dressed in a linen tunic girded 
below the breast, and booted in the fashion of the country. 



CAVE ORACLES 

The oracle is on the mountain above the sacred grove. 
It is surrounded by a marble wall, about the height of 
your waist. On this wall are planted twigs of copper 
linked together by copper filaments, and the gates are in 
this grating. Within this enclosure is a chasm, not natural, 
but excavated with a good deal of art and regularity, in 
form like a baker's oven. There is no ladder there for 
descent into the cave, and one is brought, that is light and 
narrow. Once at the bottom you see on one side, between 
the ground and the masonry, a hole about large enough for 
a man to squeeze through. One lies on the back, and 
holding in one hand a honey-cake, thrust the feet in at the 
opening, and then work oneself till the legs are in up to 
the knees. Then, all at once, the rest of the body is dragged 
down with force and rapidity, just as if you were swept 
forward by an eddy in a river, 

"Once arrived in the secret place, all do not learn the 
future in the same manner. Some see what is to befall 
them unrolled in vision, others hear it by the ear. Then 
you ascend by the same opening whereby you descended, 
going feet foremost. No one, it is said, has died in the 
cave, with the exception of one of the guardsmen of 
Demetrius, and he went down, not to consult the god, 
but in hopes of plundering the sanctuary of its gold 
and silver; his carcase, they say, was not ejected by the 
orifice that is sacred, but was found in another spot. On 
issuing from the cave of Trophonios the priests lay hold of 
you, and after having planted you on the seat of Remem- 
brance, question you as to what you have seen and heard. 
When you have told them, they hand you over, overwhelmed 
with fear, and unrecognisable by yourself and others, to 
other ministers who convey you to the edifice dedicated to 
the Good Genius and to Fortune." 

Those issuing from the cave for long after remained de- 
jected, pale, and melancholy. Pausanius says that after a 

249 



CAVE ORACLES 

while one who had gone through the ordeal could laugh; 
but Suidas tells us that those who returned from having 
made the descent never smiled again, and this gave occasion 
to a saying relative to a preternaturally grave personage, 
" He has consulted the oracle of Trophonios." 

Plutarch gives us some further particulars. The de- 
scription made by one of the characters he introduces 
speaks of visions caught by inhaling a stupefying gas. 
Under its influence hallucinations were produced in which 
Trophonios himself was thought to appear, and the tor- 
tures of Tartarus were revealed. On emerging from the 
cave into fresh air, the questioner fell into fits of delirium, 
and thought he still saw strange visions. In the biography 
of Apollonios of Tyana, Philostratus tells us that the sage 
and wonder-worker was very desirous to penetrate into the 
cave, but that the priest raised objections and made diffi- 
culties, till at last his patience failed and he entered by 
main force and remained within seven days. So much in 
this semi-fictitious biography is true perhaps — that this 
hero did force his way in. It is also true that he had 
sufficient discretion not to tell what he had discovered of 
the tricks there perpetrated. 

There was another of these caves at Acharaca, near Nysa, 
on the road to Tralles. The gas there exhaled had a 
medical healing virtue, and also gave occasion to the de- 
livery of oracles. Persons suffering from an illness and 
placing confidence in the power of the gods, travelled 
thither and stayed some time with the priests, who lived 
near the cave. Those ministers of the gods then entered 
the cavern and spent a night in it. After that they pre- 
scribed to their patients the remedies revealed to them in 
their dreams. Often, however, they took their patients 
along with them into the cave, where they were expected 
to remain for several days fasting and falling into prophetic 
sleep. 

250 



CAVE ORACLES 

About four centuries before the Christian era, there 
existed at Rome a temple dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, 
by the Tarquins, and beneath it was a subterranean chamber 
in which were preserved a collection of ancient oracles, the 
keeping of which was confided to his officers, the duum- 
viri, and the penalty of death attached to the divulgation 
unlicensed, of their contents. 

According to the legend, a strange woman, the sibyl of 
Cumae, brought to Tarquin the old nine books of oracles, 
and demanded for them three hundred pieces of gold. The 
king considered the price exorbitant, scoffed at the woman, 
and refused to buy. Thereupon the sibyl cast three of 
the volumes into the fire, and demanded the same sum pre- 
cisely for the remaining six. Tarquin again declined to 
purchase. She then burnt three more, but still required 
for the remainder the original price. The king now thought 
that he had acted unwisely, and hastened to conclude the 
bargain and secure the oracles that contained prophecies 
relative to the destiny of the Roman people. 

The oracles were written on palm-leaves in Greek, and 
with various signs and hieroglyphs, and the volumes were 
bundles of these leaves tied together. 

In the year 671 of Rome, eighteen years before the 
Christian era, the old Temple of Jupiter, built by the 
Tarquins, was destroyed by fire, and with it perished the 
Books of Destiny. Six years after the temple was rebuilt, 
and an attempt was made to recover the Sibylline oracles, 
by sending throughout Italy for oracles reported to be 
Sibylline. The deputies sent brought back from Erythaea 
a thousand verses, but the collection rapidly increased in 
such quantities that Augustus ordered them to be ex- 
amined, and such as proved to be worthless he burnt. 
After a second sifting, those that remained were put into 
two golden coffers and placed under the pedestal of the 
statue of the Palatine Apollo. 

251 



CAVE ORACLES 

As is well known, there were in circulation a number of 
forged Sibylline oracles ; some of these were the product of 
the Jewish Therapeutae, others of Christians. In his hatred 
of Christianity, the Emperor Julian ordered search to be 
made for these fictitious oracular books, that they might be 
destroyed. In 363 the Temple of the Palatine Apollo caught 
fire and was destroyed. The Christians charged Julian with 
having caused the fire so as to get rid of the Sibylline oracles 
hid under the statue of Apollo. But these had not been 
injured; the gold boxes in which they were, were opened, 
and to their confusion the Christians found that the 
oracles contained no prophecies concerning Christ, only sortes 
celebrating the gods Zeus, Aphrodite, Hera, &c. 

The accusation brought by the Christians against Julian 
recoiled upon them, for it was they who, later, by the hands 
of Stilicho, destroyed the collection. The order for the de- 
struction was given by two Christian emperors, Honorius 
and Arcadius, on the plea that these oracles favoured and 
encouraged paganism. 

Saul, it will be remembered went to consult a witch in 
the cave of Endor, where she conjured up before him the 
spirit of Samuel. 

Isaiah rebukes the Jews for " lodging in the monuments," 
doubtless to obtain oracles from the dead, to raise up the 
ghosts of the deceased, and exhort from them prophecies as to 
the future. As already pointed out, the dead and the 
pagan gods were one and the same. To consult a deity was 
to consult a hero or an ancestor of a former age. 

There is a curious story in an Icelandic Saga of a 
shepherd, named Hallbjorn, on a farm where was a huge 
cairn over the dead scald or poet Thorleif. The shepherd, 
whilst engaged on his guard over his master's flock, was 
wont to lie on the ground and sleep there. On one 
occasion he saw the cairn open and the dead man come 
forth, and Thorleif promised to endow him with the gift of 

252 



CAVE ORACLES 

poetry if he would compose his first lay in his, the dead 
man's praise. And he further promised that Hallbjorn 
should become a famous scald and sing the praises of great 
chieftains. Thereupon the tenant of the tomb retired within 
again, and the shepherd on waking found himself endowed 
with poetic gift, and he sang a lay in honour of Thorleif. 
"And he became a famous scald, and went abroad, and 
sang songs in honour of many great men, and obtained high 
honom% and good gifts, and became very wealthy."^ 

It will be remembered that SauPs interview was with the 
ghostly Samuel through the intervention of the witch. 
And there are many stories of living men endeavouring to 
obtain knowledge of the future through invocation of the 
spirits of the dead. Indeed spiritualists at the present day 
carry on the same business. 

One thing that conduced to the belief that certain caves 
were inhabited by gods and spirits, was that strange sounds 
at times issued from them. These were caused by currents 
of air entering some of the apertures and vibrating through 
the passages, provoking notes as if these galleries were organ 
pipes. This is the explanation of the iEolian cavern of 
Terni, supposed to be the abode of spirits ; and a cave near 
Eisenach was long reported to be an entrance to hell, because 
of the moans and sighs that were heard issuing from it. 

The echo also was quite inexplicable to the ignorant, and 
was assumed to be the voice of some spirit or mountain 
gnome living in the heart of the rock, to whose habitation 
a cave gave access. 

An abandoned mine with a pool at the bottom, on Dart- 
moor, is thought to be the abode of a spirit whose wails may 
be heard when the wind blows, and whence a voice issues 
calling out the name of that person who is next doomed to 
die in the parish of Walkhampton. 

The most remarkable representative in the Middle Ages 
1 Fornmanna Sogur, Copenh. 1827, iii. pp. 102-3. 

253 



CAVE ORACLES 

of the cave of Trophonios was that in Lough Derg in 
Ireland, the purgatory of S. Patrick as it was called. The 
origin is obscure, but it sprang into notoriety through the 
publication by a monk, Henry of Sal trey, of the descent of a 
knight Owain into it. Owain had been in the service of 
King Stephen, and he made his descent in the year 1153. 
Whether there ever were such a person as the knight Owain, 
or whether he was a mere invention of Henry of Saltrey is 
uncertain. Sal trey's account is precise as to the various 
stages through which Owain passed, and it is a vulgar 
rendering of the common stories of visits to purgatory, of 
which Dante's is the highest and most poetical version. 

Lough Derg is among the dreary and barren mountains 
and moorlands in the south of the County of Donegal ; in 
it is an island, with ribbed and curiously shaped rocks, and 
among these was supposed to be the entrance to purgatory. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote his " Topography of Ire- 
land" in 1187, mentions the island in Lough Derg as among 
the wonders of Ireland.^ It was, he says, divided into two 
parts, of which one was fair and pleasant, while the other 
part was wild and rough, and believed to be inhabited only 
by demons. In this part of the island, he adds, there were 
nine pits, in any one of which, if a person was bold enough 
to pass the night, he would be so much tormented by the 
demons that it was a chance if he were found alive in the 
morning ; and it was reported that he who escaped alive 
would, from the anguish he suffered there, be relieved from 
the torments of the other world. Giraldus continues by 
telling us that the natives called the place Patrick's purga- 
tory, and that it was said that the saint had obtained from 
God this public manifestation of the punishments and 
rewards of the other world, in order to convince his in- 
credulous hearers. 

1 But there is no mention of it among the wonders of Ireland in the 
Irish Nennius. 

254 



CAVE ORACLES 

Numerous visitors to Lough Derg in the Middle Ages 
published the narrative of what they had there seen and 
undergone, and rivalled each other in the extravagance of 
their accounts. There was a monastery on Lough Derg, and 
the monks had the key to the entrance to the cavern, but no 
visitor was suffered to pass within without the consent of the 
bishop of the diocese, and the payment of a heavy fee. 
Among all the extravagance that was written by visitors 
about the purgatory, some retained their common sense, 
and perceived that there was either fraud or hallucination 
in the visions there supposed to be seen. 

Froissart gives an account of a conversation he had with 
Sir William Lisle on this subject : " On the Friday in the 
morning we rode out together, and on the road I asked him 
if he had accompanied the King in his expedition to Ireland. 
He said he had. I then asked him if there was any founda- 
tion of truth in what was said of S. Patrick's Hole. He 
replied that there was, and that he and another knight had 
been there. They entered it at sunset, remained there the 
whole night, and came out at sunrise the next morning. I 
requested him to tell me whether he saw all the marvellous 
things that are said to be seen there. He made me the 
following answer : ' When I and my companion had passed 
the entrance of the cave, called the purgatory of S. Patrick, 
we descended three or four steps (for you go down into it as 
into a cellar), but found our heads so much affected by the 
heat that we seated ourselves on the steps, which are of stone, 
and such a drowsiness came on that we slept there the whole 
night.'' I asked if, when asleep, they knew where they were, 
and what visions they had. He replied that they had many 
and strange dreams, and they seemed, as they imagined, to 
see more than they would have done had they been in their 
beds. This they were both assured of. ' When morning 
came and we were awake, the door of the cave was opened, 
and we came out, but instantly lost all recollection of 



CAVE ORACLES 

everything we had seen, and looked on the whole as a 
phantasm.""' 

It is apparent from this that the wild descriptions given 
by others were merely an account of their dreams or halluci- 
nations; in many cases purely imaginary accounts, given 
for the sake of creating a sensation. I do not suppose 
that the monks of Lough Derg devised any scenic effects, 
but left the imagination of the dupes to riot of its 
own accord unassisted. In the fifteenth century a monk of 
Eymstadt, in Holland, undertook the pilgrimage to Lough 
Derg. He arrived at the lake, and applied to the prior 
for admission, who referred him to the bishop of the diocese. 
The monk then repaired to him, but as he was "poor 
and moneyless," the servants refused to admit him into 
their master's presence. Having, however, with difficulty 
obtained an audience, he begged humbly to be suffered to 
visit S. Patrick's purgatory. The Bishop of Clogher de- 
manded a certain sum of money, which, he said, was due 
to him from every pilgrim who came on this errand. The 
monk represented his poverty, and after much urgent 
solicitation, the bishop grudgingly gave him the necessary 
licence. He then went to the prior, performed the usual 
ceremonies, and was shut up in the cavern. There he re- 
mained all night, in constant expectation of seeing some- 
thing dreadful; but when the prior let him out next 
morning he had to admit that he had seen no vision of 
any sort. Thoroughly dissatisfied with his experiences, he 
went direct to Rome, and reported what he thought of 
S. Patrick's purgatory to Pope Alexander VI. The Pope 
was convinced that the whole thing was a fraud, and ordered 
the destruction of the purgatory. It was the eve of the 
Reformation ; mistrust of miracles was rife, and the Pope 
was anxious to suppress one that when investigated might 
prove a scandal. 

The purgatory was accordingly suppressed, the cave 

256 



CAVE ORACLES 

closed, but not destroyed, and no pilgrims admitted to 
it ; this was in 1497. The closing of the cave did not, 
however, interfere with the pilgrimage, and the Archbishop 
of Armagh in 1503 urged on Pope Pius III. to withdraw 
the prohibition. This was done, and profuse indulgences 
were offered to such as revisited the cave or at all events 
took part in the Lough Derg pilgrimage. On 12th September 
1632, Sir James Balfour and Sir William Stewart, carrying 
out the orders of the Government, seized "for her Majesty's 
use and benefit the Island of the Purgatory," and unroofed 
and otherwise destroyed the monastic buildings there. But 
superstition is not to be killed by Acts of Parliament. By 
a statute of the second year of Queen Anne all pilgrimages 
to S. Patrick's purgatory were decreed to be " riotous and 
unlawful assemblies," and were made punishable as such; 
and resort to the purgatory had become more frequent 
owing to Clement X. having granted a Plenary Indulgence 
to such as visited it. Since then these Indulgences have 
been repeatedly renewed. At present the pilgrimages are 
again in full swing, and there is a prior on the island, a 
hospice for the reception of the visitors, and a chapel of 
S. Patrick and another of S. Mary. " Between the two 
churches the space is taken up with the Campanile and 
Penitential beds. There are five of these beds, and they 
are dedicated to SS. Dabeoc, Columba, Catherine, Brendan, 
and Bridget. They are circular in form, measuring, with 
the exception of S. Columba's, about ten feet in diameter. 
S. Columba's is about twice the size of the others. They are 
surrounded with walls, varying in height from one to two 
feet and each of them is entered by a narrow gap or 
doorway." ^ 

It would seem then that the old superstitious practices 
are being reverted to as nearly as the spirit of the times 
will allow, and the destruction of thelcave itself will admit. 
1 " Lough Derg," by Rev. J. E, McKenna, Dublin, n.d. 

257 R 



CAVE ORACLES 

It is perhaps needless to add that there is no historical 
evidence for the apostle of Ireland having ever been at 
Lough Derg. Derg is probably a mistake for Deirg, and 
Lough Deirg would mean the Lake of the Cave. Gough, 
in his additions to Camden, thus described the purgatory: 
"It was about sixteen feet and a half long, by two feet 
one inch wide, built of freestone, covered with broad flags 
and green turf laid over them, and was so low and narrow 
that a tall man could hardly sit, much less stand in it. 
In the side was a window just wide enough to admit a 
faint ray of light ; in the floor a cavity capable of contain- 
ing a man at his length, and under a large stone at the 
end of the pavement a deep pit ; the bottom of the cave 
was originally much below the surface of the ground. It 
stood on the east side of the church, in the churchyard, 
encompassed with a wall, and surrounded by circles or 
cells, called the beds, scarcely three feet high, denominated 
from several saints. The penitents who visited the island, 
after fasting on bread and water for nine days and making 
processions round these holy stations thrice a day barefoot, 
for the first seven days, and six times on the eighth, wash- 
ing their weary limbs each night in the lake, on the ninth 
enter the cave. Here they observe a twenty-four hours fast, 
tasting only a little water, and upon quitting it bathe 
in the lake, and so conclude the ceremony. 

" Leave being first obtained of the bishop, the prior re- 
presented to the penitents all the horror and difficulty of the 
undertaking, suggesting to them at the same time an easier 
penance. If they persevered in their resolution, they were 
conducted to the door with a procession from the convent, and 
after twenty-four hours confinement let out next morning 
with the like ceremony.'*^ 

1 " St. Patrick's Purgatory," by Thomas Wright, London, 1844. Analecta 
Bollandiana,' t. xxvii. (1908). O'Connor, "St. Patrick's Purgatory," 
Dublin, 1895. MacRitchie, "A Note on St. Patrick's Purgatory," in the 
Journal of the Roy. Soc. of Ant. of Ireland, 1901. 

258 



CAVE ORACLES 

As may well be supposed, after the long preliminaries 
and the heavy fees paid, the penitents could hardly, unless 
unusually strong-minded like the Dutch monk, declare 
roundly that they had seen nothing. I do not suppose, as 
already said, that there was any fraud deliberately enacted, 
personages dressing up as devils and angels, but that the 
visitor's own dreams, and his vanity or lively imagination 
were left to propagate the story of the marvels to be seen 
and heard in Lough Derg. 

But wonderful caves, entrances to a mysterious underworld, 
are common in all countries. A story is told of Friar Conrad, 
the Confessor of S. Elizabeth of Thuringia, a barbarous, 
brutal man, who was sent into Germany by Gregory IX. 
to burn and butcher heretics. The Pope called him his 
" dilectus filius." In 1231 he was engaged in controversy 
with a heretical teacher, who, beaten in argument, according 
to Conrad's account, offered to show him Christ and the 
Blessed Virgin, who with their own mouths would ratify the 
doctrine taught by the heretic. To this Conrad submitted, 
and was led into a cave in the mountains. After a long 
descent they entered a hall brilliantly illumined, in which 
sat a King on a golden throne and by him the Queen 
Mother. The heretic prostrated himself in adoration, and 
bade Conrad do the same. But the latter drew forth a 
consecrated host and adjured the vision, whereupon all 
vanished. 

The German stories of the mountain of Venus, in which 
the Tannhauser remains, or of Frederick Barbarossa, in the 
Unterberg, or the Welsh stories of King Arthur in the 
heart of the mountain, seen occasionally, or the Danish 
fables of Holger Dansk in the vaults under the Kronnenburg, 
all refer to the generally spread belief in an underworld 
inhabited by spirits. 

In the year 1529 died Lazarus Aigner of Bergheim, near 
Salzburg, a poor man. At his death he handed over to his 

259 



CAVE ORACLES 

son a MS. account of a descent he had made into the 
underworld in 1484, and this was at once published and 
created a considerable sensation. 

According to his account, in the year just mentioned, he 
was on the Unterberg with his master, the parish priest, 
Elbenberger, and another, when they visited a chapel on the 
rock, above the entrance to which were cut the letters 
S.O.R.G.E.I.S.A.T.O.M., out of which they could make 
nothing. 

On returning home the priest observed that he wished 
that Lazarus would revisit the place, and make sure that 
the inscription had been accurately copied. Accordingly, 
next day, Aigner reascended the mountain and found the 
chapel again. But he had started late, having his ordinary 
work to do before he had leisure to go, and the evening was 
darkening in. As the way led by precipices, he deemed it 
inadvisable to retrace his steps that night, and so laid 
himself down to sleep. Next morning, Thursday, he woke 
refreshed, but to his amazement saw standing before him an 
aged barefooted friar, who asked him whence he came and 
what had brought him there. To this Lazarus Aigner 
answered truthfully. Then the hermit said to him, " I will 
explain to you what is the signification of these letters, and 
will show you something in vision.*" 

Then the barefooted friar led him into a chasm, and un- 
locked an iron door in the rock, by means of which Lazarus 
was admitted into the heart of the mountain. There he saw 
a huge hall out of which went seven passages that led to the 
cathedral of Salzburg, the church of Reichenhall, Feldkirch 
in Tirol, Gemund, Seekirchen, S. Maximilien, S. Michael, 
Hall, St. Zeno, Traunstein, S. Dionysius and S. Bartholmae 
on the Konigsee. Here also Aigner saw divine worship 
conducted by dead monks and canons, and with the at- 
tendance of countless dead of all times in strange old-world 
costumes. He recognised many whom he had known when 

mo 



CAVE ORACLES 

alive/ Then he was shown the library, and given the 
interpretation of the mysterious letters, but as it was in 
Latin, Aigner forgot it. After seven days and as many 
nights spent in the underground world, he returned to 
daylight, and as the hermit parted with him he solemnly 
bade him reserve the publication of what he had seen and 
heard till the expiration of thirty-five years, when times of 
distress and searchings of heart would come, and then the 
account of his vision might be of profit. And exactly at 
the end of the thirty-five years Lazarus Aigner died. There 
can be little doubt that, if the whole was not a clumsy 
fabrication, it was the record of a dream he had when 
sleeping, on the mountain outside the chapel of the 
Unterberg. 

Roderic, the last of the Goths, has been laid hold of by 
legend and by poetry. Southey wrote his poem on the 
theme, and Scott his " Vision of Don Roderic," an odd 
blunder in the title, as don was not used prior to the ninth 
century. Roderic ascended the throne of the Goths in 
Spain in 709. According to the legend he seduced the 
daughter of Julian, Count of the Gothic possessions in 
Africa. She complained to her father, and he in revenge 
invited the Moors, whom he had hitherto valiantly opposed, 
to aid him in casting Roderic from his throne, the issue 
of which was the defeat and death of Roderic, and the 
occupation of nearly the whole peninsula by the Moors. 
At Toledo is a cave with a tower at its entrance formerly 
dedicated to Hercules, and tradition said that he who 
entered would learn the future fate of Spain. The cave 
still exists. The entrance lies near San Ginos; it was 
opened in 1546 by Archbishop Siliceo, but has never since, 
according to Forbes, been properly investigated. The 
story went that in spite of the entreaties of the prelate 
and some of his great men, Roderic burst open the iron 
door, and descended into the cave, where he found a bronze 

261 



CAVE ORACLES 

statue with a battle-axe in its hands. With this it struck 
the floor repeatedly, making the hall reverberate with the 
sound of the blows. Then Rod eric read on the wall the 
inscription, " Unfortunate king, thou hast entered here 
in evil hour." On the right side of the wall were the words, 
" By strange nations thou shalt be dispossessed and thy 
subjects departed." On the shoulders of the statue were 
written the words, " I summon the Arabs," and on its breast, 
" I do mine office.'" The king left the cave sorrowful, and 
the same night an earthquake wrecked the tower and buried 
the entrance to the cave. 

Evidently Shakespeare had this story in his mind when 
he wrote the scene of the descent of Macbeth into the 
cave of Hekate. 

Although the oracles had ceased to speak in the pagan 
temples and caves, yet the desire remained to question the 
spirits and to inquire into the future, and for this purpose 
throughout the Middle Ages either wizards were had recourse 
to that a look might be taken in their magic mirrors, or 
else the churches were resorted to and the sacred text 
received as the response of God to some question put by 
the inquirer. When Chramm revolted against his father 
Clothair, he approached Dijon, when, says Gregory of 
Tours, the priests of the cathedral having placed three 
books on the altar, to wit the Prophets, the Acts of the 
Apostles, and the Gospels, they prayed God to announce 
to them what would befall Chramm, and by His power 
reveal whether he would be successful and come to the 
throne, and they received the reply as each opened the 
book. , 

Gregory also says that Meroveus, flying before the wrath 
of his father Chilperic, placed three books on the tomb 
of S. Martin at Tours, the Psalter, the Book of Kings, 
and the Gospels; he kept vigil all night, and passed three 
days fasting. But when he opened the books at random, 

262 



CAVE ORACLES 

the responses were so alarming that he despaired, and left 
the sepulchre in tears.^ 

The councils sought to put an end to this superstition. 
The sixteenth canon of the Council of Vannes, held in 4^65, 
forbade clerks, under pain of excommunication, to consult 
these sortes sacrce, as they were called. This prohibition 
was extended to the laity by the Council of Agde in 506, 
and by that of Orleans in 511. It was renewed repeatedly, 
as, for instance, in the Council of Auxerre in 595, by a 
capitulary of Charlemagne in 789, and by the Council of 
Selingstadt in 1022, but always in vain. If inquirers might 
not seek for answers in the churches, at the tombs of the 
Saints, they would seek them in the dens of necromancers. 
In spite of this condemnation, consultation of the divine 
oracles even formed a portion of the liturgy; and at the 
consecration of a bishop, at the moment when the Book of 
the Gospels was placed on his head, the volume was opened, 
and the first verse at the head of the page was regarded as 
a prognostication of the character of his episcopate. There 
are numerous accounts of such presages in the chronicles. 
Guibert of Nogent relates, for instance, that when Landric, 
elected Bishop of Noyon, was receiving episcopal unction, 
the text of the Gospel foreshadowed evil — "A sword shall 
pierce through thine own soul also." After having com- 
mitted several crimes, he was assassinated. He had, as his 
successor, the Dean of Orleans ; " the new bishop on being 
presented for consecration, there was sought, in the Gospel, 
for a prognostication concerning him, but the page proved 
a blank. It was as though God had said, " With regard 
to this man I have nothing to say."" And in fact he died 
a few months later. 

The same usage was practised in the Greek Church. At 
the consecration of Athanasius, nominated to the patriarchate 

^ For many more instances see Lalanne (L.), Curiosites des Traditions^ 
Paris, 1847. 

263 



CAVE ORACLES 

of Constantinople by Constantine Porphyrogenetos, " Cara- 
calla, Bishop of Nicomedia, having brought forward the 
Gospel," says the Byzantine historian Pachymeros, "the 
people were alert to learn the oracle of the opening of the 
volume. The Bishop of Nicomedia having perceived that 
the leading words were 'prepared for the devil and his 
angels,' groaned in his heart, and covering the passage with 
his hand, turned the leaves and opened at these words, * and 
the birds of the air lodged in the branches of it,' which 
seemed to have no connection with the ceremony. All that 
could be was done to conceal the oracles, but it was found 
impossible to cover up the fact. It was said that these 
passages condemned the consecration, but they were not 
the effect of chance, because there is no such thing as chance 
in the celebration of the divine mysteries." When Clovis 
was about to attack the Visigoths and drive them out of 
Aquit^ine, he sent to inquire of the oracles of God at the 
tomb of S. Martin. His envoys arrived bearing rich 
presents, and on entering the church they heard the chanter 
recite the words of the psalm, " Thou hast girded me with 
strength unto the battle: Thou shalt throw down mine 
enemies under me. Thou hast made mine enemies also to 
turn their backs upon me : and I shall destroy them that 
hate me" (Ps. xviii. 89, 40). They returned with joy to 
the king, and the event justified the oracle. 

I might fill pages with illustrations, but as these have 
no immediate reference to cave oracles, I will quote no more. 
It is obvious that recourse to churches and the tombs of 
the saints had taken the place of inquiries at the temples 
of the gods, and the grottoes dedicated to Fawns and 
Nymphs. So also it was by no means uncommon for re- 
course to be had to churches in which to sleep so as to 
obtain an oracle as to healing, as it had been customary for 
the same purpose to seek pagan temples. This was called 
Incubation. 

264 



CAVE ORACLES 

The dreams produced were often the result of inhaling a 
gas that escaped in some of the caves, or through fissures 
in the floors of the temples. At Hierapolis in Phrygia was 
a cavern of Cybele. At the close of the fifth century, when 
the temple of the goddess had been completely abandoned 
through the interdiction of paganism, the philosopher 
Damascius, who had remained faithful to the old beliefs 
of his country, descended, along with a companion, into 
the Charonion in spite of the danger attending it, or was 
supposed to exist. He came forth safe and sound, accord- 
ing to his own account, but hardly had he reached his home 
before he dreamt that he had become Attys, the lover of 
Cybele, and that he assisted at a festival held in his honour. 
There were other such caves. In the visions seen by those 
sleeping in them, the divinities of healing appeared and 
prescribed (the remedies to be taken by those who consulted 
them. Pilgrimages to these resorts — temples and caves of 
iEsculapius, Isis, and Serapis, were common events. Those 
who desired to consult Serapis slept in his temple at 
Canope. When Alexander was sick of the malady whereof 
he died, his friends went thither to learn if any cure were 
possible. "Those who go to inquire in dream of the 
goddess Isis,'' says Diodorus Siculus, "recover their health 
beyond expectation. Many have been healed of whom the 
physicians despaired." The temples were hung with ex- 
votos. At Lebedes, in Lydia, the sick went to pass the 
night in the temple of the Soteri, who appeared to them 
in dreams. It was the same in a temple in Sardinia. So 
also in one of Ino in Laconia. In the Cheronese, the 
goddess Hemithaea worked the same miracles as did Isis. 
She appeared in dream to the infirm and prescribed the 
manner in which they might be healed. In the Charo- 
nion of Nyssa it was the priest who consulted the gods 
in dream. In the temple of iEsculapius near Citheraea, a 
bed was always ready for incubation. Christianity could 

265 



CAVE ORACLES 

not uproot so deeply founded superstitious convictions and 
practices. 

The Emperor Constantine consecrated to the archangel 
Michael two churches near Byzantium, one was at Anaplous, 
on the Bosphorus, the other on the opposite shore at 
Brochoi. This second church replaced a temple that had, 
according to tradition, been founded by the Argonauts, 
and was called the Sosthenion. According to John Malala, 
Constantine slept in the temple and asked that he might 
be instructed in dream to whom the church which was to 
replace it should be dedicated. Great numbers from By- 
zantium and the country round had resort to these churches 
to seek the guidance of the archangel in their difficulties 
and a cure when sick. Sozomen, the ecclesiastical historian, 
relates an instance of a cure effected in one of the churches 
of S. Michael. Aquilinus, a celebrated lawyer, was ill with 
jaundice. "Being half dead, he ordered his servants to 
carry him to the church, in hopes of being cured there or 
dying there. When in it, God appeared to him in the 
night and bade him drink a mixture of honey, wine and 
pepper. He was cured, although the doctors thought the 
potion too hot for a malady of the bile. I heard also that 
Probian, physician of the Court, was also cured at the 
Michaelon by an extraordinary vision, of pains he endured 
in his feet." " Not being able to record all the miracles 
in this church, I have selected only these two out of 
many.*" ^ 

That which took place at the Michaelons on the Bosphorus 
occurred elsewhere, in churches dedicated to SS. Cosmas 
and Damian. At Mgae in Cilicia was a shrine of ^Esculapius, 
and incubation was practised in his temple. It afterwards 
became a church of Cosmas and Damian, and the same 
practices continued after the rededication. The chain of 

^ Hist. Eccles., ii. 3 ; see for many illustrations Maury (A.), La Magie, 
Paris, 1860. Part II., chap. i. 

me 



CAVE ORACLES 

superstitious practices continued after the change in religion 
without any alteration. In the church of S. Hilaire in 
France is to be seen the saint's bed, " to which they carry 
insane persons, and after certain prayers and religious rites, 
they lay them to sleep in the bed, and they recover." ^ 

In my "Book of South Wales" I have shown that the 
same usage continued as late as the beginning of the 
nineteenth century in the church of Christchurch near 
Caerleon, on the gravestone of one John Colmer, and have 
reproduced a print of 1805, representing a man lying there 
to get cured. 

We have accordingly a series of customs beginning in 
caves dedicated to heathen deities, transferred to their 
temples, then to churches under the invocation of Christian 
saints and of angels. 

One might well have supposed that with the advance of 
education, there would have been an end to all cave oracles 
and grotto apparitions. But not so — there is a special 
mystery in a cave that stimulates the imagination, and the 
final phase of this tendency is the apparition at Lourdes, 
and the consecration of the grotto. The vision at Le 
Salette has not retained its hold on the superstitious, 
because it was on an alp, but that of Lourdes being in a 
cave, roused religious enthusiasm to the highest pitch. 
That the supposed apparition talked nonsense made the 
whole the more delightfully mysterious. 

"Yonder, beneath the ivy which drapes the rock, the 
grotto opens," writes Zola, "with its eternally flaming 
candles. From a distance it looks rather squat and mis- 
shapen, a very narrow and humble aperture for the breath 
of the Infinite which issued from it. The statue of the 
Virgin has become a mere speck, which seems to move in 
the quiver of the atmosphere heated by the little yellow 
flames. To see anything it is necessary to raise oneself; 
1 Jodocus Sincerus, liin. Gcdliae, 1617. 

267 



CAVE ORACLES 

for the silver altar, the harmonium, the heaps of bouquets 
thrown there, the votive offerings streaking the smoky walls, 
are scarcely distinguishable from behind the railing."" 

The floor of the grotto is scarcely raised above the level 
of the river Gave, which has had to be thrust back to make 
room for a passage to the mouth of the cavern. The whole 
story of the apparition of the Virgin there rests on the 
unsupported assertion of an hysterical scrofulous peasant 
girl. But who can say that the cult of sacred grottoes is a 
thing of the past when tens of thousands of pilgrims visit 
Lourdes annually, and believe in the story that confers 
sanctity on it ! 



268 





O _ 






E >- 
3.2 






CHAPTER XI 

ROBBERS' DENS 

THE name of the outlaw, Humphrey Kynaston, who, 
with his horse, lived in the face of a precipice, is not 
likely speedily to be forgotten in Shropshire; his 
exploits are still matter of tradition, and the scenes of his 
adventures are yet pointed out. 

Humphrey was the son of Sir Roger Kynaston, of Hordley, 
near Ellesmere. The family derived from Wales and from 
the princes of Powys. Their arms were argent, a lion 
rampant sable. 

Sir Roger Kynaston had zealously embraced the side of 
the York faction. King Henry VI. had attempted to make 
peace by holding a conference in London, when the Lord 
Mayor at the head of five thousand armed citizens kept 
peace between the rival parties. Henry proposed an agree- 
ment, which was accepted, and then the King, with represen- 
tatives of both sides, went in solemn procession to S. Paul's. 
To the great joy of the spectators, the Yorkist and 
Lancastrian leaders walked before him arm in arm, Richard, 
Duke of York, leading by the hand the queen, the real 
head of her husband's party. 

But the pacification had been superficial. The Yorkists 
were determined to win the crown from the feeble head of 
Henry. At their head was the Earl of Warwick, and the 
King had hoped to get him out of the way by making him 
Governor of Calais. But strife broke out again six months 
after the apparent reconciliation at S. Paul's. The Earl 
of Salisbury was the first to move ; but he had no sooner put 

269 



ROBBERS' DENS 

himself in march from Yorkshire to join the Duke of York 
at Ludlow, than Lord Audley, with 7000 men, attempted 
to intercept him. They met at Blore Heath, in Stafford- 
shire. Audley was drawn into a snare, and slain by Sir 
Roger Kynaston with his own hand ; along with him fell 
2000 of his followers. Thenceforth the Kynastons assumed, 
not only the Audley arms and the motto, " Blore Heath," 
but the rising sun of York as their crest. 

Wild Humphrey was the son of Sir Roger Kynaston, 
by his wife the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Gray, 
Earl of Tankerville, and Lord of Powys. He was the 
second son, and not expecting to succeed to the family 
estates, was given the constableship of the castle of Middle, 
which had at one time belonged to the Lords le Strange, 
but which had lapsed to the Crown. 

He sadly neglected his duties, and allowed the castle to 
fall into disrepair, almost into ruin. This was not altogether 
his own fault. The castle was of importance as guarding 
the marches against the Welsh, always ready, at the least 
provocation, to make raids into England. The office of 
constable was honorary rather than remunerative, a poor 
recompense for the services rendered by Sir Roger to the 
Yorkist cause. Humphrey was expected to keep up the 
castle out of his own resources, and he was without private 
means. It was true that with the accession of the House 
of Tudor, danger from the Welsh was less imminent : but 
Henry VII. was a parsimonious monarch, careful mainly 
to recover for the exchequer the sums of which it had been 
depleted in the Wars of the Roses. 

As Humphrey was short of money, he took to robbery. 
The Wars of the Roses had produced anarchy in the land, 
and every man's hand was against his fellow, if that fellow 
had something of which he might be despoiled. 

The story is told that one day Wild Humphrey rode to 
the manor-house of the Lloyds of Aston, and requested a 

210 



ROBBERS' DENS 

draught of wine. With ready hospitality a silver beaker 
was brought forth swimming with the juice of the grape. 
Humphrey, who was mounted, drained it to the last drop, 
then, striking spurs into his horse, galloped away, carrying 
the silver vessel with him. As has been said of Robin Hood, 
so it was told of the Shropshire freebooter, that he robbed 
the rich and befriended the poor. On one occasion he 
stopped the steward of a gentleman and plundered him of 
the rents just received. The Lord of the Manor sent him a 
message that he had been a forbearing landlord, but now 
he absolutely must put the screw upon his tenants to make 
up for his loss. Kynaston at once waylaid another gentle- 
man^s steward, and paid the first back to the last penny 
with the proceeds of the second robbery. 

His depredations at length became so intolerable that 
he was outlawed in the eighth year of Henry VII. As this 
year began on the 22nd August 1490, and did not end till 
the 21st of August 1491, it is not quite certain in which 
year of our reckoning he was placed under ban. 

He was now obliged to fly from the dilapidated castle of 
Middle, and seek himself out a place of refuge. This he 
found or made for himself in the face of the cliff of Ness. 

This is a hill of new red sandstone, near Bass Church, 
that forms an abrupt scarp towards the south. The top 
commands a superb view of the Shropshire plain, with the 
Breiden Hills rising out of them, and the Long Mynd to 
the south. The western horizon is walled up by the Welsh 
mountains. Formerly the head and slopes of Ness Cliff 
were open down, but have been enclosed and planted of late 
years by Earl Brownlow, so that it is not easy to realise 
what the appearance was when Wild Humphrey took up 
his abode in the rock. 

In the cliff, that is reached by a rapid ascent, and which 
rises above the slope some 70 feet, he cut a flight of steps 
in the side of a buttress that projects, till he reached the 

271 



ROBBERS' DENS 

main face of the crag, about half-way up. Then he scooped 
out a doorway, next excavated two chambers, one to serve 
as a stable for his horse, the other for a habitation for him- 
self. In the latter he formed a hearth, and bored a hole 
upwards in a slanting direction, till he reached daylight, 
and this served as chimney. Beside his door he cut a 
circular orifice to act as window. The doorway was closed 
by a stout door sustained in place by a massive bar, the 
socket holes to receive which remain. 

In the pier between the stable and his own apartment, he 
cut two recesses, probably to receive a lamp. Between 
these a later hand has engraved the initials H.K., and the 
date 1564. As Humphrey died in 1534, this was, of 
course, none of his doing. 

At the foot of the cliff near the first step is a trough or 
manger cut in the living rock, apparently to receive water, 
but as no water exudes from the rock, it must have served 
for the oats or other corn given to his horse. It is tradi- 
tionally said that Wild Humphrey's horse pastured in 
proximity to the Ness. When Humphrey saw danger, and 
when the shades of evening fell, he whistled ; whereupon the 
beast ran like a cat up the narrow steps in the face of the 
rock, and entered its stable. Once there, Kynaston was 
master of the situation, for only one man at a time could 
mount the stair, and this ^was commanded by his window, 
through which with a pike he could transfix or throw down 
an intruder. 

Where now stands the National School at the foot of the 
hill was at that time a meadow, to the grass of which his 
horse was partial. 

The farmer to whom the meadow belonged naturally 
enough objected, and collected a number of men who linked 
themselves together with ropes and surrounded the field. 
The horse took no notice but continued browsing. The 
ring gradually contracted on him. Kynaston saw the pro- 

272 



ROBBERS' DENS 

ceeding from his eyrie, and uttered a shrill whistle. At 
once the gallant steed pricked up his ears, snorted, ran, 
leaped clean over the head of a man, and scrambled up 
the stair in the cliff, to his master's shelter. On another 
occasion a thief, thinking it no harm to rob a felon, 
succeeded in leaping on the horse's back. But the beast, 
feeling that some one was astride of him other than Wild 
Humphrey, ran to the cliff, and the rider, frightened at the 
prospect of being carried up the rock side and into the 
power of the desperate outlaw, was but too thankful to 
throw himself off and get away with a broken arm. 

Humphrey had two wives, both Welsh girls, whom he 
carried off, but married. Gough, in his history of Middle, 
says : " Humphrey Kynaston had two wives, but both of 
soe mean birth that they could not claim to any coat of 
arms."" By the first he had a son, Edward, who died young. 
By the second he had three sons, Edward, Robert, and 
Hoger. If tradition may be trusted he proved so brutal 
and so bad a husband that his second wife left and returned 
to her kinsfolk in Wales. His son Edward was heir to the 
last Lord Powys, and continued the succession. Humphrey's 
elder brother died without lawful issue, and the honours 
and estates of the family devolved on Edward, upon his 
father's death in 1534. 

Now the laws relating to the marriage of Englishmen 
with Welsh women were still in force. The English 
Parliament, in 1401, had passed a series of the most op- 
pressive and cruel ordinances ever enacted against any 
people ; prohibiting marriage between English and Welsh, 
and disfranchising and disqualifying any Englishman 
from holding or inheriting property, if he had married 
a Welsh woman, and closing all schools and learned pro- 
fessions to the Welsh. These infamous laws had been re- 
enforced by Parliament in 1413, and were not repealed 
when Henry VII. came to the throne, as might have been 

^73 s 



ROBBERS' DENS 

anticipated. But Henry granted the Welsh a charter, 
which rendered the administration less rigorous. These 
tyrannous laws were not repealed till 1536. Now, the 
fact that Humphrey's marriage with Welsh women stood 
against him in no way justified his treatment of his wives. 

Deserted by his second wife, Wild Humphrey was assisted 
by his mother, who came to Ruyton, in the neighbourhood, 
and carried him food on Sunday, a day of civil freedom. 

On one occasion when he had been committing his usual 
depredations, on the further side of the Severn, the Under 
Sheriff at the head of a posse rode to arrest him, and for 
this purpose removed several planks of Montford Bridge, 
by which he was expected to return, and then laid in 
wait till he arrived. In due course Humphrey Kynaston 
rode to the Severn Bridge and prepared to cross. There- 
upon the posse comitatus rose and took possession of the 
bridge end believing that they had him entrapped. But 
the outlaw spurred his horse, which leaped the gap, and 
he escaped. A farmer, who had been looking on, so the 
legend tells, called out, "Kynaston, I will give thee ten 
cows and a bull for thy horse." " Get thee first the bull 
and cows that can do such a feat,"" shouted the outlaw in 
reply, " and then we will effect the exchange." 

The leap of Kynaston's horse was measured and marked 
out on Knockin Heath, and cut in the turf, with the letters 
H. K. at each end. 

The accession of a Welsh prince to the crown was in 
reality a fortunate thing for the Kynastons, especially for 
Wild Humphrey ; for ever since the rising of Owen Glen- 
dower, an Englishman who had married a Welsh woman 
was, as already said, legally disqualified from holding any 
office of trust, and from acquiring or inheriting land in 
England. Consequently Humphrey's issue by his Welsh 
wife might have been debarred from representing the family 
but for the accession of Henry VH. As it turned out, 

S74 



ROBBERS' DENS 

since his elder brother left no issue, the son of Humphrey 
eventually inherited the family estates of the Kynastons. 

Two and a half or three years after his outlawry, 
Humphrey was pardoned, 30th May 1493. The pardon 
is still extant, and is in the possession of Mr. Kynaston, 
of Hardwick Hall and Hordley, the present representative 
of the family. The direct line from Wild Humphrey 
expired in 1740. 

It is somewhat noticeable that in all the successive 
generations there was no further outbreak of the wild 
blood. The Kynastons descending from the outlaw, who 
was the terror of the countryside, were orderly country 
gentlemen, who did their duty and pursued harmless 
pleasures. Perhaps Wild Humphrey was rather a product 
of his lawless times, of the terrible disorders of the Wars 
of the Roses, and of the cruel law that blasted him and 
his issue, on account of his Welsh marriages, than a free- 
booter out of sporting propensities. 

Tradition says that his continued misconduct and ill- 
treatment of his wife kept her estranged from him. But 
on his deathbed he had one single desire, and that was to 
see her and obtain her pardon. He stoutly refused to be 
visited by any leech ; and only reluctantly agreed to allow 
a " wise woman,'"* who lived at Welsh Felton, near the 
scene of his old exploits at Ness Cliff, to visit him and 
prescribe herbs. 

On her arrival, however, his humour had changed, and 
he impatiently turned away, saying, " I'll have none of 
your medicines. I want naught but my Elizabeth, my 
poor wronged wife." 

" And she is here," answered the wise woman, throwing 
off her hood. 

Humphrey turned and laid his head on her bosom, and 
without another word, but with his eyes on her face, 
breathed his last. 

275 



ROBBERS' DENS 

Is the story true or hen trovato f Who can say ! It 
reposes on tradition. 

Ness Cliff, the rock, in the face of which Humphrey 
Kynaston lived four hundred years ago, remains, with his 
cave, his flight of steps, up which ran his faithful horse, his 
stable, and the feeding trough, and the hearth on which 
burned Wild Humphrey's fire, very much as he left it. 
Only one feature is changed. There, from his rock, his 
eye ranged over the rolling woodland and open champagne 
country for miles so that he could see and prepare against 
the enemy who ventured to approach his stronghold ; now 
it is buried in larch and Austrian pine plantations, so that 
nothing is visible from the cave, save their green boughs. 
It seems strange that for so many years he can have been 
suffered to continue his depredations without an attempt 
being made to surround his rock and keep him imprisoned 
therein till he was starved into surrender. But the explana- 
tion is probably this. He had made friends among the 
peasantry of the neighbourhood, whom he never molested, 
and to whom he showed many kindnesses; and they re- 
warded him by giving him timely warning of the approach 
of those bent on his capture, and thus enabled him to 
mount his horse, gallop away, and conceal himself elsewhere. 
Yet this only partly explains the mystery. If the cave 
were deserted, why did not the sheriff and his posse comi- 
tabus destroy the steps leading up into it, and thus render 
a retreat into it impossible ? The only conclusion at which 
one can arrive is that the custodians of the law in the fifteenth 
century were half-hearted in the discharge of their duty, 
that there was a secret admiration for the wild outlaw in 
their hearts, and that they were reluctant to see the scion 
of a brave and ancient house brought to the gallows. 

Some men have become predatory animals, and as such 
seek out lairs as would the beasts of prey. 

The Chinaman possesses an instinctive reversion to old 

^76 



ROBBERS' DENS 

subterranean life. Wherever he goes, wherever he succeeds 
in forming a " China- town," he begins to burrow and under- 
mine the houses in which he and his fellow-countrymen 
live, and a labyrinth of passages and chambers is constructed, 
communicating with the several dwellings, so that a criminal 
Chinaman can rarely be trapped in the native quarter by 
the police. When San Francisco was burnt, the ground 
under the Chinese town was found to be honeycombed with 
runs and lurking-holes to an astounding extent. 

When David had to escape from the pursuit of Saul, he 
fled first of all to Gath, but being recognised there, he 
made his way to the cave of Adullam. " And every one 
that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and 
every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto 
him, and he became a captain over them ; and there were 
with him about four hundred men." ^ In a word, he became 
the head of a party of freebooters, who laid the neighbour- 
hood under contribution. 

The Palestine surveyors have identified the cave of 
Adullam with one now called by the peasants Aid-el-Ma. 
It lies in a round hill about 500 feet high, pierced with a 
number of caverns ; the hill itself being isolated by several 
valleys and marked by ancient ruins, tombs, and quarryings. 
''A cave which completes the identification exists in the 
hill. It is not necessary to suppose that the one used by 
David was of great size, for such spacious recesses are 
avoided by the peasantry even now, from their dampness 
and tendency to cause fever. Their darkness, moreover, 
needs many lights, and they are disliked from the numbers 
of scorpions and bats frequenting them. The caves used as 
human habitations, at least in summer, are generally about 
twenty or thirty paces across, lighted by the sun, and com- 
paratively dry. I have often seen such places with their 
roofs blackened by smoke : families lodging in one, goats, 
1 1 Sam. xxii. 1-2. 
277 



ROBBERS' DENS 

cattle, and sheep, stabled in another, and grain or straw 
stored in a third. At Adullam are two such caves in the 
northern slope of the hill, and another further south, 
while the opposite sides of the tributary valley are lined 
with rows of caves, all smoke-blackened, and mostly 
inhabited, or used as pens for flocks and herds. 

"The cave on the south of the hill itself was tenanted 
by a single family when the surveyors visited it, just as 
it might have been by David and his immediate friends, 
while his followers housed themselves in those near at 
hand.'' 1 

The haunts of the bandits in the times of Herod must 
have been very much like those in Dordogne. They were 
high up in the face of precipices in Galilee, and he was 
able only to subdue these gangs of freebooters by letting 
his soldiers down in baskets from the top of the cliffs, with 
machines for forcing entrance.^ 

Stanley says ^ : " Like all limestone formations, the hills 
of Palestine abound in caves. In these innumerable rents, 
and cavities, and holes, we see the shelter of the people 
of the land in those terrible visitations, as when ' Lot went 
up out of Zoar, and dwelt in a cave.' Or as when ' in the 
days of Uzziah, King of Judah, they fled before the earth- 
quake to the ravine of the mountains ; ' to the rocky 
fissures, safer, even though themselves rent by the convul- 
sions, than the habitations of man. We see in them, also, 
the hiding-places which served sometimes for the defence 
of robbers and insurgents, sometimes for the refuge of those 
of whom 'the world was not worthy;' the prototypes of 
the catacombs of the early Christians, of the caverns of 
the Vaudois and the Covenanters. The cave of the five 
kings at Makkedah ; the ' caves, and dens, and strongholds, 

1 Geikie (C), " The Holy Land and the Bible," Lond. 1887, i. p. 108. 

2 Josephus, "Antiq.," xiv. 6. 

3 " Sinai and Palestine," 1856, pp. 148-149. 

278 



ROBBERS' DENS 

and ' rocks,' and ' pits,' and ' holes ' in which the Israelites 
took shelter from the Midianites in the time of Gideon, 
from the Philistines in the time of Saul; the cleft of the 
cliff Etam, into which Samson went down to escape the 
vengeance of his enemies ; the caves of David at AduUam 
and at Maon, and of Saul at Engedi; the cave in which 
Obadiah hid the prophets of the Lord ; the caves of the 
robber hordes above the plain of Gennesareth ; the sepulchral 
caves of the Gadarene demoniacs; the cave of Jotopata, 
where Josephus and his countrymen concealed themselves 
in their last struggle, continue from first to last what has 
been called the cave-life of the Israelite nation." 

The vast grotto of Lombrive in Ariege has been already 
mentioned. It became a den of a band of murderous 
brigands at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A 
detachment of soldiers was sent to dislodge them in 1802 ; 
to reach the great hall access is had by crawling through 
a narrow passage, and here the robbers murdered as many 
as 146 of the soldiers, taking them one after another as 
they emerged from the passage, and cutting their throats.^ 
The passage now bears the name of that of Du Crime. 

The Surtshellir. in Iceland has attracted a great deal of 
attention, perhaps because it is so different from other caves, 
being formed in the lava. Its origin is very easily ex- 
plained. At a great eruption of lava from a neighbouring 
crater, the crust hardened rapidly whilst the viscid current 
below continued to flow, and this latter flowed on till it also 
became rigid, and left a great gap between it and the 
original crust. I visited it in 1860. It has several branches, 
and in it lie pools perpetually frozen. There are gaps here 
and there in the roof through which rays of light penetrate, 
and also snow that heaps itself on the floor. In one side- 
chamber is a great accumulation of sheep-bones. In the 
thirteenth century a band of twenty-four robbers took up 
1 " Spelunca," Paris, 1905, t. vi. p. 169. 

279 



ROBBERS' DENS 

their abode in this cavern, and made excursions in all direc- 
tions around, robbing farmhouses, and driving away sheep. 
When this had gone on for some time the bonders united 
and succeeded in surrounding the gang, and killing eighteen 
of them. The six who escaped fled to the snow mountains, 
and were never heard of again. Now the strange thing is, 
how could the men live through a winter in this horrible 
cavern with a floor of ice in many places, and with a 
temperature below freezing even in summer? Fuel they 
could not procui-e, as there are but black sandy moors around 
that grow nothing but dwarf willow, and that is so scarce 
as to be inefficient for their purpose. They must have 
supplied themselves with light and heat by the tallow of 
the sheep they killed, run into a lamp. This is the only 
heating fuel used at present by the Icelanders, apart from 
the animal heat they give out in the closely sealed common 
room they occupy as sleeping quarters as well as dining- 
room and workshop. It may be vastly pleasant in theory 
to live at other people's expense, but it has its drawbacks, 
and in this instance le jeu ne valait pas la chandelle. 

In Pitscottie's " Chronicles of Scotland," and in Holinshed's 
"Scottish Chronicle," at the end of the reign of James II. there 
is a story of a brigand who is said to have lived in a den 
called Feruiden, or Ferride's Den, in Angus, who was burnt 
along with his wife and family for cannibalism, the youngest 
daughter alone was spared as she was but a twelvemonth 
old. But when she grew up she was convicted of the same 
crime, and was condemned to be burnt or buried alive. 

I have given elsewhere a very full account of the cave — 
a den of robbers beside which that to which Gil Bias was 
carried was a paradise — La Crouzate on the Causse de 
Gramat in the Department of Lot. I will therefore here 
mention it but superficially. At the entrance are notches 
in the rock, showing that at one time it was closed by a 
door. A rapid descent is suddenly brought to a standstill 

280 



ROBBERS' DENS 

by an opening in the floor of a veritable oubliette, and this 
opening is crossed only by a bridge of poles, the hand 
helping to maintain the balance by pressing against the 
wall of rock on the right hand. Then comes a second 
hollow, but not so serious, and then a third that can only 
be descended by a ladder. This opens into a hall in the 
midst of which yawns a horrible chasm, across which lies 
a rough bridge of poles that give access to some small 
chambers beyond, which had formerly been tenanted by the 
brigands who had their lair in this cavern. Notches in the 
walls of the well show that across it were laid poles that 
sustained a pulley, by means of which a bucket could be let 
down to the well 265 feet, for water. My cousin, Mr. George 
Young, actually found remains of the crane employed for 
the purpose at the bottom of the well. About the year 
1864, M. Delpons, prefect of the Department of Lot, observ- 
ing a huge block of limestone lying in a field near La 
Crouzate, had it raised, and discovered beneath it twelve 
skeletons ranged in a circle, their feet inwards, and an iron 
chain linking them together ; probably the remains of the 
bandits who made of La Crouzate their den, whence they 
issued to rob in the neighbourhood. According to the 
local tradition, the peasants of the surrounding country 
paid a poll-tax for every sheep and ox they possessed 
so as to raise a levee which should sweep the Causse of 
these marauders, and it was due to this eifort that the band 
was captured and every member of it hung to the branches 
of the walnut tree beneath which lies the broad stone. 

At Gargas, near Montzejeau, in Hautes Pyrenees, is a pre- 
historic cavern of considerable extent. In it have been 
found sealed up in stalagmite the remains of primitive 
man. Now the significant fact exists that just ten years 
before the outbreak of the French Revolution this cave 
was inhabited by Blaise Ferrage, a stone-mason, who at 
the age of twenty-two deliberately threw aside his trade 

281 



ROBBERS' DENS 

and retired into the grotto, whence he sallied forth to seize, 
murder, and eat children and young girls. Men also he 
shot, strangled, or stabbed, and dragged to his lair, there 
to devour their carcases. 

For three years this monster terrorized the countryside. 
The number of his victims was innumerable. As last 
he was caught and broken on the wheel in December 1782. 
There is no evidence that the naked prehistoric men who 
had inhabited the cave of Gargas were cannibals. 

That the outlaw and he who has dropped out of the 
ranks of ordered social life, and he who seeks to prey on 
civilised society should naturally, instinctively, make the 
cave his home, is what we might expect. He is reverting to 
the habits of early man whose hand was against every man. 

In the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," the outlaws are pre- 
sented as living in a cave. The robbers in " Gil Bias " had 
their lair also in one. 

One of the finest and most pathetic of Icelandic Sagas 
is the history of Grettir the Outlaw, who was born in 997, 
and killed by his enemies in 1031. He spent nineteen 
years in outlawry in Iceland, and outlawry there in that 
terrible climate, with no house to cover his head, would 
seem an ordeal impossible for human endurance. Between 
the autumn of 1022 and the spring of 1024, that is to 
say during two winters, he lived in a cave in the west 
of the island. A steep shale slide was below a cliff, and 
above this a hollow in the rock. He built up the mouth 
of the cave, and hung grey wadmal before the entrance, 
so that none below could notice anything peculiar, or 
any one living there. Whatever fuel he wanted, all he had 
to eat, everything he needed, had to be carried up this 
slippery ascent by him. Down the shale slide he went when 
short of provisions, and over the marshes to this or that 
farm and demanded or carried off, sometimes a sheep, some- 
times curds, dried fish — in a word what he required. 

282 



ROBBERS' DENS 

In the summer of 1862 a very similar lair which Grettir 
inhabited a little later in the east of Iceland was explored 
by a farmer living near. This is his description of it: 
"The lair stands in the upper part of a slip of stones 
beneath some sheer rocks. It is built up of stones, straight 
as a line, four and three-quarter ells long and ten inches 
wide, and is within the walls seven-eighths of an ell deep. 
Half of it is roofed over with flat stones ; small splinters of 
stone are wedged in between these to fill up the joints, and 
these are so firmly fixed that they could not be removed 
without tools. One stone in the south wall is so large that 
it would require six men to move it. The north wall is 
beginning to give way. On the outside the walls are over- 
grown with black lichen and grey moss.'' 

A chapman spending the winter in a farm hard by, 
named Gisli the Dandy, heard that a price of nine marks 
of silver was placed on the head of Grettir. " Let me but 
catch him," said he, " and I will dress his skin for him." 

The outlaw heard of this threat, and one day looking 
down from his rock he saw a man with two attendants riding 
along the highway. His kirtle was scarlet, and his helmet 
and shield flashed in the sun. It occurred to Grettir that 
this must be the dandy, and he at once ran down the slide of 
stones, clapped his hand on a bundle of clothes behind the 
saddle, and said, " This I am going to take." Gisli, for it 
was he, got off* his horse, and called on his men to attack 
Grettir. But the latter soon perceived that the chapman 
kept behind his servants, and never risked himself where 
the blows fell; so he put the two thralls aside and went 
direct upon the merchant, who turned and took to his heels. 
Grettir pursued him, and Gisli, in his fear, threw aside his 
shield, then away went his helmet, and lastly a heavy purse 
of silver attached to his girdle. Presently the flying man 
came to a bed of old lava full of cracks. He leaped the 
fissures and reached a river that flowed beyond. There he 

283 



ROBBERS' DENS 

halted, unable to make up his mind to risk a plunge into it, 
ajid that allowed Grettir to run in on him and throw him 
down. 

"Keep my saddle-bags and what; I have thrown away," 
pleaded the fallen man, " only spare my life." " There 
must be a little skin-dressing done first," answered Grettir. 
Then he took a good handful of birch rods from the wood, 
pulled Gisli's clothes up over his head, and laid the twigs 
against his back in none of the gentlest fashion. Gisli 
danced and skipped about, but Grettir had him by his 
garments twisted about his head, and contrived to flog till 
the fellow threw himself down on the ground screaming. 
Then Grettir let go, and went quietly back to his lair, 
picking up as he went the purse and the belt, the shield, 
casque, and whatsoever else Gisli had thrown away. Also 
he retained the contents of his saddle-bags.^ 

At Dunterton, on the Devon side of the Tamar, is a 
headland of rock and wood projecting above the river, and 
in this is a cave. In or about 1780 there was a man, 
the terror of the neighbourhood, who lived in this cave, 
but that he was there was unknown. He was wont to 
" burgle " the houses of the gentry round, and his favourite 
method of proceeding was to get on the roof and descend 
the chimneys, which in those days were wide. In my hall 
chimney was, till I removed it, an apparatus fitted with 
sharp spikes upward to impale the burglar should he 
attempt to get into the house that way. In the house of a 
neighbouring squire a funnel was made into which he might 
drop, and from which he could not escape. He was finally 
discovered by Colonel Kelly, when drawing the wood with 
his hounds ; as the cave was held to be the den of the ogre, 
it was looked upon with fear, and was also long the lair of 
smugglers. 

Perhaps the latest cave-dwelling criminal was Carl 

^ "Grettir Saga," Copenh. 1859. "Grettir the Outlaw," Lond. 1890. 

284 



KOBBERS' DENS 

Friedrich Masch, who before his execution confessed to 
having committed twelve murders and to having attempted 
several more. This man carried on this warfare against 
society from 1856 to 1864, that is to say for eight years, 
in Prussia. His presence in the district was always sus- 
pected rather than ascertained, by the numerous cases of 
arson, burglary, and robbery, as well as by murders and 
murderous attacks. One of his worst crimes was the 
butchery of a whole family, a miller, his wife, three children, 
aged respectively twelve, ten, and five, and a young servant- 
maid in 1861. In vain were large rewards offered for the 
capture of Masch; if he had confederates they were not 
bribed to betray him, and the police were powerless to 
trace him. Even soldiers were called out to search the 
forests, but all in vain, and he was not captured till 1864 
when he was arrested when tipsy in the street of Frankfurt 
on the Oder, and then it was not till some hours later 
that it was discovered he had but just committed a fresh 
murder. 

In March 1858 a miller named Ebel went into the Pyritz 
forest near Soldin, along with his servant- man to fetch 
away firewood he had purchased. After having laden his 
wagon he sent it home under the conduct of his man, and 
remained behind among the trees. He looked about among 
the bushes to find a suitable branch that he could cut to 
serve as a walking-stick. Whilst thus engaged he came 
on some rising ground overgrown with young birch, and 
on the slope of the hill not more than 200 paces from the 
much-frequented highroad he noticed a spot where the 
snow was beaten hard, as if it had been the lair of a wild 
beast. To get a better sight of this, Ebel parted the 
bushes and came closer. Then he was aware of a patch of 
dried leaves uncovered by snow. Unable to account for 
this, he stirred the leaves with his recently cut stick, and 
to his surprise saw them slide down into the earth as into 

285 



ROBBERS' DENS 

a funnel. More puzzled than ever he began to examine 
the locality, when he noticed that the ground under his 
feet sounded hollow, and that there was hard by a second 
and larger hole. As he stood staring at this, suddenly a 
cudgel appeared followed by the white face of a man with 
black hair and beard and dark piercing eyes, rising out of 
the ground. For a moment Ebel stood paralysed with 
terror, and then, as the man was heaving himself to the 
surface, he beat a hasty retreat. 

When he reported what he had seen to the forester and 
some wood-cutters, he was at first not believed, but he 
insisted that they should accompany him to the spot. They 
did so, and this is what they found : a board, covered 
with earth, but with a hole in the midst, through which 
a couple of fingers could be thrust so as to bring it from 
below into position, had been used to cover the entrance 
to an underground habitation. Jumping into a pit, a 
passage was seen about five feet high, in which a stove 
had been placed, and the hole the miller had seen, into 
which the leaves had fallen, was the chimney. Further on 
was a chamber seven feet long by seven feet broad, and 
five feet high, that had clearly served as a dwelling for 
some considerable time. It was full of clothing, linen, an 
axe, a hammer, a bunch of keys, and an assortment of 
burglar's tools. The roof was supported by posts and 
transverse beams, and from them hung legs of pork, bacon, 
and sausages. There was also a cellar well stocked with 
wine and brandy, and even champagne. A bed was fashioned 
of birch boughs and fir branches and hay. The boughs 
protected from the damp of the soil. Great quantities of 
bones of pigs, sheep, geese, and other poultry were found 
buried in the sides of the passage and about on the 
surface. 

The forester reported to the police what he had seen. 
A good many of the articles found were reclaimed by peasants 

286 



ROBBERS' DENS 

who had been robbed ; but the denizen of the cave-dwelling 
had vanished, and returned no more. At the same time, 
attacks on persons and property ceased in that neighbour- 
hood, but began in the neighbourhood of Berlin. But in 
the spring of 1859 they were renewed in the district of 
Soldin. The military were ordered to manoeuvre, surround, 
and traverse the woods, and search every moor. All was 
in vain, not a trace of the perpetrator of these crimes could 
be found, and no sooner were the soldiers withdrawn than 
a taverner and his young wife were discovered in their 
little inn, with their heads beaten in, and their throats 
cut, and the man's watch and his money taken. This was 
followed by the murder of a peasant girl, on the highroad, 
as she was returning from saying farewell to her lover who 
had to leave his village for military service. Next came 
the slaughter of the miller and his family. Renewed efforts 
to trace the murderer were made and were equally fruitless. 

A toll-keeper was fired at in his bed and severely wounded. 
The would-be assassin had drawn a cart into position, placed 
boards on it, raised an erection on the boards to support 
himself so as to be able to take aim at the sleeping man 
through the window. He could see where he was, as a light 
burned in the room. He was prevented breaking into the 
house and murdering the wife and child by the approach 
of passengers. A farmer was shot at and also badly 
hurt when returning from market, and only saved from 
being killed and robbed by his horse taking fright and 
galloping out of reach. 

A further hiding-place of Masch was discovered by 
accident, as was the first, in May 1861, in the neighbourhood 
of Warsin. It was more roomy than the first, constructed 
with more art, was also underground, and contained in- 
numerable objects that had been stolen ; amongst others 
a little library of books that Masch could read in the long 
winter evenings to pass away the time. 

S87 



ROBBERS' DENS 

When after eight years of this sort of life, he was finally 
arrested, he was brought to confess his crimes. And one 
portion of his narrative concerned his place of concealment 
in the winter of 1858-59, before he had dug out his subter- 
ranean abode at Warsin, and after the discovery of his 
den at Pyritz. 

That was also spent underground, but not in a cave 
of his construction. I will give the account in his own 
words. 

*' The winter came on and I had no money and no place 
of refuge against the cold. It was only when a hard 
frost set in that I found an asylum in the culvert constructed 
to carry off the water from the Bermling lake. The canal 
consists of a stone-built tunnel, the entrance to which is 
closed by closely-set iron stancheons. But accustomed as 
I was, like a cat, to contract and wriggle through narrow 
spaces, I succeeded in forcing my way in and I formed my 
lair on the solid ice. Before a fall of snow I provided myself 
with food, wine, brandy, clothing, and bedding, but I was 
constrained to spend many weeks in my hiding-place lest I 
should betray it by my footprints in the snow. My abode 
there was terribly irksome, for the culvert was not lofty 
enough to allow one to stand upright in it, and I was 
constrained to wriggle about in it, crawling or thrusting 
myself along with hands and feet. I had indeed covered 
my legs with leather wound about them, but my limbs 
became stiff. Sitting on the ice was almost as uncomfortable 
as lying on it. An upright position when seated became 
unendurable with my legs stretched out straight before me. 
Accordingly I hacked a hole through the ice into the 
frozen mud, and thrust my legs down into it. But my 
blood chilled in them, and my legs would have been frozen 
in, had I not withdrawn them and stretched them out 
as before, well enveloped. Moreover I could not sit with 
my back leaning against the ice-cold stone walls, and the 

288 



ROBBERS' DENS 

air in the tunnel was dense and foggy. As soon as the 
ground was clear of snow I escaped from my horrible prison, 
and enjoyed myself in the open, but for safety had to retreat 
to it again. On one occasion I narrowly escaped discovery. 
The owner of the estate hard by and his son were out 
one day with their hounds. These latter rushed to the 
entrance of the culvert and began snuffing about at it. 
Their masters observed this, and made the brutes enter 
the tunnel. I crouched, my loaded gun in my hand, and 
peered betwixt the iron bars. If one of the hounds had 
come near me, I would have shot it. Happily the beasts 
did not venture far in, probably on account of the heavy 
vapour they had lost the scent. They withdrew, and 
I remained in my cellar-dwelling till the spring. When 
the ice melted and the mud became soft, I had to quit 
my winter quarters. I had suffered so unspeakably that 
I resolved without more ado to excavate for myself a new 
habitation underground which in comparison with the 
culvert seemed a paradise to me.""' 

Masch was executed on 18th July 1864. 

A picturesque walk through the woods near Wiesbaden 
on the Taunus road leads to the Leichtweishohle, a cave 
under a mass of fallen rock, in the Nerothal. The cave 
measures 100 feet in length, and at its entrance and exit 
are now set up portraits of the former occupant of this 
retreat and his mistress. Within, in a side chamber, is 
the bedroom of the robber, and his bed, that was covered 
with dry moss. In the midst of the cave is a round, 
massive stone table, and under its foot is a pit excavated 
to receive his money and other valuables. The cave, now 
accessible, is an object of many a pleasant excursion from 
Wiesbaden ; over a century ago it was in a dense and 
pathless forest, the intricacies of which were unknown. 

Henry Antony Leichtweiss was born in 1730 at Ohrn, and 
1 Berneue Pitaval, Leipzig; neue Serie, ii. 1867, pp. 104-105. 

289 T 



ROBBERS' DENS 

was the son of a forester in the service of the Duke of 
Nassau. He was put apprentice to a man who was at once 
a baker and a besom-maker, and he learned both professions 
with readiness. Being a well-built, handsome youth, he 
managed to get engaged as courier in a noble family, and 
in the situation made many journeys and learned to know 
the world, and also to lay by some money. In September 
1757 he married the daughter of the magistrate (Schultheiss) 
of Dotzheim, and he obtained appointment under him as 
scrivener. By his wife he had seven children. On the 
death of his father-in-law, and the appointment of a new 
magistrate, the aspect of his affairs changed. He was de- 
tected in attempts to appropriate trust-money to his own 
use, and was dismissed his office. He sank deeper and 
deeper, and was arrested and imprisoned at last for theft. 
On leaving Wiesbaden, where he had been confined, he 
returned to Dotzheim, but there no one would have any- 
thing to say to him, and his own wife refused to receive 
him into her house. 

Leichtweiss now gave himself up to a vagabond life, and 
as he had of old been associated with the chase, he turned 
to poaching as a resource. The wide stretch of forests of 
the Taunus, well stocked with game, and the proximity to 
such markets as Frankfort and Mainz, offered him a prospect 
of doing a good business in this line. He managed to 
induce a wench to associate herself with him, and he dug 
out a cave of which the description has already been given, 
in which he made his headquarters, and where he lived and 
carried on his depredations unmolested for seven years. 
The spot was so secret and the confusion of rocks there was 
so great, that he trusted never to be discovered. The main 
danger lay in smoke betraying him when his fire was lighted, 
or of his track bring followed in the snow during the 
winter. But, as already said, for seven years he remained 
undiscovered, although the keepers of the Duke were well 

290 



ROBBERS' DENS 

aware that the game in the forests was being shot down 
and disposed of in the town, and although villagers declared 
that he had stayed and robbed them. These allegations 
were, however, never proved. When he was at last captured, 
he was tried and sentenced to be placed in the stocks 
at Wiesbaden in the market. Two days after he hung 
himself in prison. 

In the chapter on Souterrains I have spoken of the 
Adersbach and Wickelsdorf rock labyrinths, without men- 
tioning that they have served as a haunt for robbers. I 
will now deal with them from this point of view. Take a 
piece of veined marble, and suppose all the white veins of 
felspar washed clear, leaving the block cleft in every direc- 
tion from top to bottom, and all the cleavages converging 
to one point and through that one point only, on the 
Wickelsdorf side, is access to be had to the labyrinth. But 
then conceive of the block thus fissured towering three 
hundred feet or more sheer up, and having narrow rifts as 
the passages by which the interior may be penetrated. In 
the eleventh century sixty knights of the army of Boleslas 
III., when the latter was driven back by the Emperor 
Henry II., took refuge in the neighbourhood of Trauterau, 
and built there a castle, and subsisted on robbery. The 
captain was a Pole named Nislaf. As they prospered and 
multiplied, Nislaf divided his company, and placed one 
portion under Hans Breslauer, who said to his men, '' We 
have a treasure-house in these rocks, only unhappily it is 
empty. We must pillage the merchants and travellers, and 
fill it." Nislaf's party fell out with one another, and one, 
named Alt, led off the discontented and built a fortress, the 
remains of which may be traced at the highest point above 
the Adersbach labyrinth. One day the crowing of a cock 
betrayed where Nislaf had his abode, and troops were sent 
from Prague to clear the country. Most of the bandits 
were captured and executed. 

291 



ROBBERS' DENS 

In the early part of the nineteenth century a notorious 
ruffian at the head of a gang lurked in this neighbourhood. 
His name was Babinsky. 

One evening, in the autumn of 1839, a carriage drew up 
at the outskirts of the Dobrusch forest. A couple of ladies 
descended from it at the door of a tavern, and asked the 
Jewish landlady if they could be accommodated with supper 
and a bed. " We are afraid to proceed," said one of the 
ladies, " for fear of Babinsky." " Babinsky," answered the 
hostess, " has never shown his face here." 

The ladies were shown into a plain apartment, but were 
made uneasy by seeing a number of ferocious looking men 
in the passage and bar. *' Who are these ? " asked the lady. 
" Only packmen," replied the landlady. After supper the 
two ladies were shown into a large bedroom in which at 
one side was an old-fashioned wardrobe. When left alone 
they examined this article of furniture, and perceived an 
unpleasant odour issuing from it. By some means- or other 
they succeeded in forcing open the door, when they per- 
ceived that at the bottom of the wardrobe was a trap-door. 
This they raised, and to their dismay discovered a well or 
vault, out of which the unpleasant odour issued. They now 
set fire to some newspaper, and threw 'it down the hole, 
and to their unspeakable horror saw by the flames a half- 
naked corpse. The ladies closed the trap and considered. 
It was clear that they were in a murderous den, probably 
controlled by Babinsky. The youngest lady, who had most 
presence of mind and courage, descended the stairs, opened 
the guest-room, and said to her coachman, " Hans, it is 
now half-past nine. This is the hour at which Captain 
Feldegg, my brother-in-law, promised to start at the 
head of a military escort to conduct us through the 
forest. We will leave as soon as you can harness the horses 
to save him the trouble of coming on so far as this." 

Hans finished his glass of wine and rose. The men in 

292 



ROBBERS' DENS 

the guest-room looked at one another. Before half-an-hour 
had elapsed the carriage rolled away, and next morning 
the police were communicated with. It need hardly be 
said the ladies met with no escort. 

A few days later a middle-aged, ragged fellow, with a 
grinding organ, arrived at the inn, and called for a glass. 
In the guest-room were the " packmen," and some equally 
wild-looking girls. The grinding organ was put in requisi- 
tion, and to its strains they danced till past midnight, when 
Babinsky himself entered and the dancing ceased. The 
organ-grinder had so ingratiated himself into the favour of 
the robbers, that they resolved on retaining him as the 
musician of the band. He was conveyed across country 
till they reached some such a rocky retreat as that of 
Wickelsdorf or Adersbach, and there spent three weeks, 
only allowed to accompany the band when they were going 
to have a frolic. On these occasions they betook themselves 
to the resort agreed on, by twos and threes. One day as 
some of them passed along a road, they saw a blind beggar 
in the hedge, asking for alms. Some cast him coppers, and 
the organ-grinder slipped into his hand a kreutzer, wrapped 
in a bit of paper. 

That night the tavern was surrounded by the military, 
and the whole gang, along with Babinsky, was captured. 
This was on 15th October 1839. The organ-grinder was 
the Prague detective Hoche. 

The trial dragged on for several years; some of the 
robbers were executed, some sentenced to ten, others to 
twenty years of imprisonment. No evidence was produced 
that actually convicted Babinsky of having committed, or 
been privy to the murders, and he was sentenced to penal 
servitude for life. 

I was rambling in Bohemia and tracing the Riesen 
Gebirge in 1886. On reaching home I read what follows 
from the Vienna Correspondent of the Standard. " At the 

293 



ROBBERS' DENS 

little market town of Leitomischl in Bohemia," at the foot 
of the continuation of the Giant Mountains I had been 
exploring, " an innkeeper and his wife and son have just been 
arrested by the police on a charge of having, during the 
last twenty-five years, murdered no fewer than eleven 
persons. The victims were all travellers who had put up 
for a night at his house, and who had shown that they 
were in possession of ready cash. For a considerable time 
the suspicions of the police had been aroused by the sudden 
disappearance of various visitors staying at this inn. 
Among the latest cases was a cattle dealer who, after visit- 
ing the market, was returning home with the proceeds of 
the sale of a herd of cattle, and a young baron who had 
won a large sum in a public lottery. After putting up at 
the inn in question, these men, like others before them, were 
never heard of again. The very last case was that of the 
sudden disappearance of a lady, who was undoubtedly 
murdered and robbed by the arrested persons." 

I did in fact find the inns in Bohemia, in certain places 
infested, but not with bandits and cut- throats. 



294 



CHAPTER XII 

ROCK SEPULCHRES 

A NOTEWORTHY distinction exists between the count- 
less rock- tombs in Palestine and those equally countless 
in Egypt. In the former there has not been found a 
single inscription to record the name of the occupant, whereas 
among the latter not one was unnamed. 

The reason probably was that the Jew had no expectation 
of existing in a state after death, and those of his family he 
put away in their holes in the rocks had ceased to be to 
him anything more than a recollection. All his hopes, his 
ambition, were limited to this life and to the glorification 
of his nation. The highest blessing he could personally 
reckon on was that his days might be long in the land 
which the Lord his God would give him. 

The horizon of the Egyptian, on the other hand, was 
full of anticipation of a life of the spirit when parted from 
the body. " Instead of the acres of inscriptions which cover 
the tombs of Egypt," says Dean Stanley, "not a single 
letter has been found in any ancient sepulchre of Palestine." 

When the Israelites escaped from the iron furnace of 
Egypt, they carried with them so intense an abhorrence of 
all that savoured of Misraim that they put away from them 
polytheism and repudiated idolatry ; they swept away as 
well the doctrine of life after death, such as dominated the 
Egyptian mind, that they might focus all their desires on 
this present life. 

"Let me bury my dead out of my sight," expressed 
the feeling of the Israelite before and after the Exodus. 

295 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

The patriarchs had no conception of the resurrection of 
the body. The idea was unknown to them. Their faith 
did not even embrace a belief in the immortality of the soul. 
A passage in Job (xix. 25-27) has been adduced to prove 
the contrary, but it does so only because it is a mistransla- 
tion, and was manipulated by the translators according to 
their own preconceptions. Even the word rendered Redeemer 
has no such signification, it means " the Avenger of Blood." 
It was probably through contact with other nations that 
had a wider hope, that slowly and haltingly the conception 
of a prolonged existence after death made its way among 
the Jews. 

Christianity invested the body with a sacredness un- 
dreamt of under the Old Covenant, and gave assurance, not 
of a continued existence after death alone, but of a resusci- 
tation of the body. " If in this life only we have hope 
in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." "As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 

The Jews entertained a strong aversion towards incinera- 
tion, because the latter was a pagan usage, and they gloried 
in their singularity. In Rome they had their catacombs 
hewn out of the rock, and the Christians followed their 
example. 

A short time before the Christian era, Judea had been 
made tributary to Rome by the victories of Pompey, and 
many thousands of Jews were transferred to Rome, where 
a particular district was assigned to them on the right 
bank of the Tiber. We know how tenaciously Jews clung 
to their religion and to their traditional practices, and they 
sought to lay their departed members in rocky sepulchres, 
such as those of their distant country. And, in fact, 
outside the Porta Portese, the gate nearest to their quarter 
of the town, a Jewish catacomb exists, discovered in 1602, 
excavated in Monte Verde, that contains the tombs of the 
Hebrews. From this all emblems exclusively Christian 

296 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

are absent. There are representations of the Ark of the 
Covenant, of the seven-branched candlestick. The lamps 
also were impressed with the same symbols; and in a 
fragment of a Greek inscription is traced the word 
" Synagogue." 

The catacombs of the Christians resembled those of 
the Jews in every other particular. 

Three different kinds of stone compose the basis of the 
Roman Campagna ; the tufa litoide, as hard and durable as 
granite, used extensively for building purposes; the tufa 
granolare^ which is consistent enough to retain the form 
given to it by excavators, but it is useless as building 
material, and lastly the Pozzuolana, largely employed in 
the making of Roman cement. Neither the arenaria or 
sand quarries, nor those for the building stone were ever 
employed for excavation to make catacombs, whereas the 
granular tufa has been so largely excavated for this purpose 
that if the galleries were continued in one line, it has i been 
reckoned that they would stretch the entire length of the 
Italian peninsula. They form a labyrinth of passages and 
cross-passages, and are moreover in several stages called 
'piani. But they do not extend far from the Eternal City, 
not beyond the third milestone. The galleries have a 
breadth of from two to four feet, and their height is 
governed by the nature of the rock in which they are hewn. 
The walls on both sides are lined with graves dug out of 
the rock, in a horizontal position, one above the other, 
like bunks in a cabin. In each of these reposed one or 
more bodies. Here and there the sequence is broken by a 
cross-passage that leads to a small chamber, and in these 
chambers the sides, like those of the galleries, are perforated 
with graves. All these graves were originally closed by 
slabs of marble or tiles. This is about the only distinction 
between the graves of the rich and those of the poor, of 
the slave from his master. Those who desired to set some 

297 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

mark on the resting-place of a relative, to distinguish it 
from those around, either had the name engraved upon the 
slab, or rudely scratched with the sharp end of a trowel in 
the mortar by which the slab was secured, or else a bit of 
ornamented glass or a ring or coin was impressed in the 
mortar while it was still wet. 

The martyrs in many cases were accorded a more elaborate 
grave. They were laid in a sarcophagus in an arcossolium, 
and on the covering slab the Holy Mysteries were celebrated 
on the anniversary of their martyrdom. But sometimes a 
wealthy family had its own chamber, cubiculum, reserved 
for its members. 

The puticoli, of which mention has already been made 
as ash and refuse pits, were of a totally different description. 
They were funnel-shaped shafts sunk in the rocks, the narrow 
orifice being on the level of the ground. Into this were 
precipitated the carcases of slaves and of the poor. Indeed, 
they are still in use at Naples, when a cart with a lantern 
may be followed till it reaches the place of interment, 
where a hole gapes. The 'corpse that is enveloped in a 
shroud only, is shot down into the hole, without its winding 
sheet, that is reserved for further use. 

But to return to the catacombs. There are not only 
over thirteen in the neighbourhood of Rome, but they are 
found also at Otricoli, Soriano, Spoleto, Vindena, Chiusi, 
Lucca, Castellamare, Prata by Avellino, Aquila, Puzzuoli, 
Baias, Nola, Canesa, Tropea, Manfredonia, Venisa — this last 
perhaps Jewish. There are five sets of them at Naples. Others 
in Malta. In Spain at Ancona, Siviglia, and Elvira. In 
France is the hypogee opening out of the early church of S. 
Victor at Marseilles. In Germany is one at Treves. In 
Hungary at Fiinfkirchen. One in the Greek island of Melos, 
at Alexandria also, and at Cyrene. One at Salamis in Cyprus. 
The catacombs of Syracuse are like those of Rome, of vast 
extent. They have lofty vaults very superior to the narrow 

298 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

gangways of the cemeteries of Rome. A broad gallery 
runs athwart the whole labyrinth, and from this branch 
out innumerable passages. One large circular hall is lighted 
from above. Along the sides are niches that served as 
sepulchres. Paintings as at Rome decorate the walls and 
vaults, all of an early Christian character, representing 
men and women in the attitude of prayer, the peacock, 
and the sacred monogram. 

Numerous inscriptions from the tombs are collected in 
the museum of Syracuse. 

The catacombs of Paris are not of ancient date as 
catacombs. They were originally, like those of Syracuse, 
quarries for the construction of the calcaire grossier for 
building the city, down to the seventeenth century. They 
extend under the communes of Vauregard, Montrouge, 
and Gentilly on the left bank of the Seine, and it is said 
that a tenth part of Paris is thus undermined. In 1774, 
and again in 1777, accidents occurred through the giving 
way of the crowns of the caverns, bringing down with 
them Ithe houses built above. In the Boulevard Neuf a 
building near the Barriere d'Enfer suddenly sank into a hole 
80 feet deep, and this drew public attention to the danger. 

Until the end of the reign of Louis XVI. the principal 
burying-ground of Paris had been the Cemetery of the 
Innocents. Originally situated beyond the walls of the 
town, it had in due course been so surrounded by the 
growing metropolis as to render it impossible to continue 
its use as a cemetery, and in 1784 the practice of burying 
therein was discontinued, the accumulated bones of Parisians 
were removed thence with great precaution, on account 
of the insalubrity of the operation, and they were deposited 
in the old quarries, and the catacombs were solemnly 
consecrated for their reception by the Archbishop of Paris 
on 7th April 1787. A public market-place was then 
established on the site of the former cemetery. 

S99 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

To protect the town from settling down into this 
necropolis, vast sums were expended in substructures, so 
as to remove all danger of future collapse. 

Gradually many other cemeteries that had been en- 
croached upon, or surrounded, were required to yield up 
their dead, so that it was estimated that the catacomb 
contained the remains of three million persons. The bodies 
of some victims of the Revolution were placed here as 
well. 

For many years the bones remained as they were thrown 
down on their removal, in heaps, but after 1812 they 
were gradually arranged in ja fantastic manner, and turned 
into an exhibition for the curious. Sixty-three staircases 
lead from the different parts of the town into the catacombs, 
and are used by workmen and agents appointed to take 
care of the necropolis. Twice in the year tours of inspection 
are made by the surveyors, but visitors are no longer 
allowed access to the catacomb. There have occurred cases 
of men having been lost in the intricate labyrinth. 

The crypts in which were laid the bodies of saints gave 
occasion to kings, princes, and great men employing like 
mausoleums. 

The poor and mean might lie in the earth, but men of 
consequence must have vaults in which the members of 
their families might be laid. What hideous profanation 
of sepulchres would have been spared had the kings of 
France been laid in the earth ! They elected to repose in 
the crypt of the splendid minster of S. Denis. When the 
Revolution broke out, the Convention resolved that the 
tombs should be destroyed in accordance with the motion 
of Barrere, 31st July 1793, " La main puissante de la 
Republique doit efFacer impitoyablement ces epitaphes 
superbes, et demolir ces mausolees qui rappeleraient des 
rois Feffrayant souvenir ; " and " of the coffins of our old 
tyrants let us make bullets to hurl at our enemies." The 

300 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

decree for the destruction was sacrilegiously executed ; the 
coffins were opened — Henri II. and his queen in their robes, 
Henri IV. in a perfect state of preservation, Louis XIV. 
still recognisable. The body of Turenne, with the fatal 
bullet visible in it, was preserved as a peep-show. The rest 
were thrown into *' fosses communes " dug in the neighbour- 
hood. By a singular coincidence, the work of desecration 
was begun on 12th October 1793, the anniversary of the 
day on which, one hundred years before, Louis XIV. 
had caused the demolition of the tombs of the German 
Emperors at Spires. Not only so, but the agent employed 
by the Convention was Hentz, a namesake of the super- 
intendent of the work of destruction carried out at Spires. 

And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges — 
Louis XL escaped. He had been buried in a crypt at 
Clery, and had been forgotten. In 1889 the abbe Saget, 
cure of Clery, opened the vault and found the body intact. 
Louis XI. had this sepulchre made for himself during his 
lifetime. Now the visitor can take in his hand the head, 
and muse over it on the treachery, cunning, and cruelty 
that once lodged in that little brain-pan. Scott may have 
been incorrect in his history in " Quentin Durward," but 
he was accurate in his characterisation of the king. 

The instinct of immortality is implanted in the human 
breast. The reverential care with which primeval man 
treated his dead, showed a confusion of ideas between soul 
and body. His senses told him, and told men in the 
historic period, that the body dissolved to dust, yet as a 
temple of the spirit it was treated with respect. The 
soul to the Egyptians was in some manner always related 
to the body. The " ka '' must have something to which to 
return, if not to the mummy, then to its model. 

The dead in the first ages were given the caves in which 
they had lived, but they began to press out the living, to 
monopolise all caves, and afterwards artificial dwellings 

801 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

were reared to receive them, stone structures, dolmens, that 
were heaped over with earth, to make them resemble their 
former subterranean habitations. Sometimes these structural 
caves consist of a series of chambers connected by a passage, 
the so-called allees couvertes of France, but of which we have 
fine examples in Scotland and Ireland. 

Where huge slabs of granite, limestone, or sandstone 
were not available, the living scooped out underground 
cemeteries, closely resembling their own underground 
dwellings. 

In the Petit Morin are many of these that have been 
explored and described by the Baron de Baye. I have 
already spoken of the habitable caves there found. But 
there were sepulchral chambers excavated in the chalk as 
well. These differ from the others in that the entrances 
are blocked by a large slab, and in some instances have 
sculptured figures in them of the goddess of Death, or of 
a stone hammer. 

The Norsemen buried their sea-kings in the ships in 
which they had sailed on their piratical expeditions. King 
Ring, when he slew Harold Hilditon, buried him in his 
chariot and with his horses. In Gaulish tombs such 
chariots have been found. The Scandinavians seem to 
have had but a confused idea of what death was; the 
dead were but in a condition of suspended animation. 
Hervor went to the isle of Samsey where, under a huge 
cairn, lay her father Angantyr and his eleven brothers who 
had fallen in single combat. Angantyr had been buried 
along with his sword Tyrfing. 

When she reached the grave mound she sang : — 

" Wake thou up^ Angantyr ! 
Wakens thee Hervor 
Thy only daughter. 
Give from the grave mound 
Freely thy good sword. 
302 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

" Wake thou up Hervard ! 
Wake thou, Hjorvard ! 
Hrani, Angantyr ! 
Shake off your slumbers 
Under the tree-roots." 

From his grave Angantyr replies : — 

" Hervor, my daughter. 
Wherefore disturb me ? 
Full of temerity 
Madly thou seekest 
Dead men to waken." 

But she persists. She will have the sword. Whereupon 
the cairn gapes, and she sees fire therein, and from out of 
the mound and flame the sword is hurled forth and falls at 
her feet.^ 

Grettir the Strong broke into the tomb of Karr the Old, 
an ancient Viking, to obtain his sword, and had to wrestle 
with the dead man before he could wrench it from him.^ I 
will quote another case of cairn-breaking that exhibits the 
same conception of suspended life in the grave, and that 
in Christian times. I shall slightly condense the story. 
" Gest started breaking into the mound in the day. At 
evening, with the help of the priest, he had got down to 
make a hole in the vault, but next morning it was all closed 
up again." To obviate this the priest watched all night by 
the cairn furnished with holy water. Next morning when 
Gest returned, the mound was as he had left it, and the two 
continued their operations. Gest was let down into the 
cavity, and the priest and other men held the rope. It was 
fifty fathoms down to the floor. Gest had a candle in his 
hand, and he now lighted it and looked about him. He 

^ '* Hervarar Saga," Copenh. 1785. 

'^ "Grettir Saga," Copenh. 1859, chap, xviii. 

803 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

saw a big ship with five hundred men in it, and they were 
all preparing to start up, but as the light of the (con- 
secrated) candle fell on them none stirred, but they stared 
blankly and snorted. Gest smote at them to cut off their 
heads, but it was as though his sword passed through water. 
He cleared the dragon-ship of all its valuables and sent 
them up by the rope. Then he searched for Raknar (the 
Seaking whose tomb it was). He found a descent still 
further underground, and there he discovered Raknar 
seated on a throne. He was frightful to look upon, and the 
vault was both cold and stinking. A cauldron was under 
his feet full of treasure, and he had a torque about his neck, 
very resplendent, and a gold ring on his arm. He was in 
breastplate and helmet, and had a sword in his hand. Gest 
went up to Raknar and saluted him courteously in a song, 
and Raknar bowed in acknowledgment. Gest said to him : 
" I cannot commend your appearance at present though 
I can praise your achievements. I have come a long way in 
quest of you, and I am not going away unrewarded for my 
trouble. Give me some of what you have, and I will sing 
your renown far and wide."' Raknar bowed his head to him, 
and allowed him to remove his helmet and breastplate. 
But when Gest attempted to deprive him of his sword, 
Raknar sprang up and attacked Gest. He found him 
neither old nor stiff. And now the consecrated candle went 
out. Raknar became so strong that Gest could hardly bear 
up against him ; and all the men in the ship now rose up. 
Then Gest invoked his father Bard who appeared, but 
availed naught, then he called upon Him who had created 
heaven and earth, and vowed to accept the faith which 
King Olaf was preaching. Thereupon Olaf appeared in 
a blaze of light, and Raknar collapsed, with all his men. 
His power was gone from him. Whereupon Gest cut off 
his head and laid it at his thigh. At the apparition of 
King Olaf all the dead men who had stood up reseated 

304 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

themselves on their benches. After that Gest removed all 
the treasures out of the tomb.^ 

The cairn of the outlaw Gunnar was seen open occasion- 
ally. "Sharphedin and Hogni were out of doors one 
evening by Gunnar's cairn on the south side. The moon 
and stars were shining clear and bright, but every now and 
then the clouds drove over them. Then all at once they 
thought they saw the cairn standing open, and lo ! Gunnar 
had turned himself in the grave-mound and was looking 
at the moon. They thought they saw four lights burning 
within, and none of them threw a shadow. They saw 
Gunnar, that he was merry, and wore a right joyful face. 
He sang a song, and that so loud it might have been heard 
though they had been further off." The song of the dead 
man is given, and then it is added : " After that the cairn 
was shut up again." ^ 

Helgi Hundingsbane was visited in his grave-mound by 
his wife Sigrun, who spent a night there with him. He 
informed her that all her tears fell on and moistened 
him. "Here Helgi have I prepared for thee in thy 
mound a peaceful bed. On thy breast, chieftain, I will 
repose as I was wont in thy lifetime." To which the 
dead Helgi replies: "Nothing is to be regarded as un- 
expected, since thou, living, a king's daughter, sleepest in 
a grave-mound, in the arms of a corpse." Next morning 
Sigrun departs.^ 

Saxo Grammaticus tells us a grimly tale. Asmund and 
Asvid, brothers in arms, had vowed not to be separated in 
death. It fell out that Asvid died, and was buried along 
with his horse and dog in a cairn. And Asmund, because 
of his oath of friendship, had courage to be buried with 
him, food being put in for him to eat. Now just at this 

1 " BartSa Saga," Copenh. 1860, chap. xx. 

2 " Nials Saga," chap. Ixxix., trans, by Dasent, Edin. 1861, chap. Ixxvii. 

3 " Helgi Kv. Hundingsbana," ii. 45-47. 

305 u 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

time, Eric (King of Sweden) happened to pass nigh the 
barrow of Asvid, and the Swedes thinking it might contain 
treasure, broke into it with mattocks, and saw disclosed a 
cave deeper than they had anticipated. To explore this, 
a youth, chosen by lot, was let down in a basket. But 
Asmund, when he saw the boy descend, cast him out, and 
got into it himself. Then he gave the signal to draw up. 
Those above drew in the basket, thinking by the weight 
that it contained much treasure. But when they saw the 
unknown figure of a man emerge, scared by his strange 
appearance, and thinking that the dead had come to life 
again, they flung down the rope and fled. For Asmund 
looked ghastly, covered with the corruption of the charnel- 
house. He tried to recall them, and assured them that 
they were needlessly alarmed. And when Eric saw him, 
he marvelled at the aspect of his bloody face, the blood 
flowing freely and spurting out. Then Asmund told his 
story. He had been buried with his friend Asvid, but 
Asvid came to life again every night, and being ravenously 
hungry, fell on and devoured his horse. That eaten, he had 
treated his dog in the same manner, and having consumed 
that he turned on his friend, and with his sharp nails tore 
his cheek and ripped off one of his ears. Asmund, who 
had no ambition to be eaten, made a desperate resistance, 
and finally succeeded in driving a stake through the body 
of the vampire. Out of delicacy due to old friendship, 
Asmund did not have recourse to the usual means of 
quelling the posthumous vivacity and vitality of a corpse, 
which was to cut off the head and make the dead man sit 
on it.i 

The notion of suspended animation after death by no 

means expired with paganism. When Severus, Bishop of 

Ravenna, was about to die, he went in full pontificals to 

the tomb of his wife and daughter, had the stone removed, 

^ " Saxo Gramm.," V., chap, clxii-iii. 

306 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

and bade the dead ones make room for him between them, 
and they obeyed. When S. Meven died, and his faithful 
friend Austell followed him shortly after, the dead body 
moved on one side in the sarcophagus to accommodate his 
companion. When an irreverent man struck the coffin of 
S. Cadoc with a staff, the incensed Saint "roared like a 
bull." In the Life of S. Germanus of Auxerre is a curious 
episode. A pagan named Mamertinus being overtaken by 
night and a storm, took refuge in a solitary building in 
which was a sarcophagus. He put his knapsack under his 
head on the upper slab of the tomb, and lying down there 
went to sleep. At midnight he was roused by a young man 
at the door of the cell, who called out, '' Corcodemus, 
Corcodemus, levite of Christ, arise ! " whereupon a voice an- 
swered from the tomb, " What do you want ? " The youth 
replied, " Bishop Perigrinus and Bishop Araator want you 
at the church, where they are holding vigil." " I can't go," 
replied the dead man, " I have a visitor here and I must 
show him hospitality." After an interval the young man 
returned with two others and again summoned Corcodemus, 
who now got out of his grave and said to one of those who 
was at the door, " I will go with you, but you must abide 
here and protect my visitor, for there is a bitch with her 
young, to the number of seven, ready to tear him to 
pieces." 

So late as 1680 a book appeared, De Miraculis Mortuorum, 
by L. C. F. Garmann, published at Leipzig, opposing 
opinions not merely of the ignorant but of the learned 
as to a kind of prolongation of physical life in the dead— 
their issuing from the graves to suck the blood of the 
living, their continuing their wonted avocations under- 
ground, as a shoemaker being heard cobbling in his 
coffin, of infants shedding their milk teeth and growing 
second teeth, of gnawing their grave clothes, and many 
other horrible superstitions — showing how persistent the 

307 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

belief was that the dead did continue to live in their 
sepulchres. 1 

The idea that by symbolic burial a man became re- 
generate, that he put off the old condition and entered into 
another that was new, by passing through the earth or a 
hole in the rocks, was very general, and it has continued 
to the present day in the modified form of enabling a 
sufferer by this means to leave behind his infirmities and 
pass into a condition of robust health, or of one charged 
with a crime clearing himself by this ordeal. 

The passing of a child through the earth was forbidden 
by the Canons of Edgar (a.d. 969).^ Women who had 
crying children dug a hole in the earth and thrust the 
child through, drawing it out at a further hole. Men were 
forbidden also to pass cattle through a hollow tree or per 
terram foratam transire. In France weak children were 
passed through a hollow stone of S. Tesse. In the crypt 
of Ripon Minster is a hole in the rock through which young 
women crept to establish their innocence when charged with 
incontinence. In Iceland a long turf was cut attached to 
the soil at both ends, and such as would pass out of a 
condition of hostility into one of brotherhood crawled 
through the gap. At Ilefeld, in the Harz, is a holed stone 
called the Nadelohr. Any one coming to settle in the Harz 
for the first time is required to creep twice through the 
perforation. In a good many places in Germany a similar 
process is gone through to cure lumbago. Indra, the god 

1 The confusion between the ghost and the corpse is exemplified in 
" Hamlet." 

" Tell 
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, 
Have burst their cerements ; why the sepulchre. 
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, 
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws 
To cast thee up again." 

Act i. sc. 5. 

2 Thorpe, "Ancient Laws and Institutes," Lond. 1840. 

308 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

of Thunder among the Hindoos, drew a sick man thrice 
through a hole, and thereby gave him health and new birth. 
The many Helfensteins that are found in Germany were in 
like manner stones of Help, by traversing which the old 
man was put off and the new man put on.^ Creeping 
through a holed stone, or under one suspended over another, 
is still practised in Ireland as a cure for disorders. From 
passing under the earth the custom passed to going through 
a split tree, the tree representing the coffin. An interesting 
account of this usage will be found in White's '' Selborne." 

And now let us turn to something else. 

A religion of the worship of ancestors formed the 
ground- work of many religions that in process of time have 
totally changed their character. It lies at the root of the 
creeds and practices of most peoples in east and west. It 
was in Greece before its religion passed into the stage of 
the deification of natural forces. The Assyrians and 
Chaldeans clung to it in Western Asia. The Egyptians in 
the valley of the Nile, the Etruscans in Italy. At the 
other extremity of the world, the Chinese and Anamites 
perform its rites to this day from Saghalien to Cambodia. 

But in Western Asia and in Europe the primitive religion 
became modified little by little. On the borders of the 
Tigris and the Euphrates, as well as on the banks of the 
Nile, appeared the beginnings of a different eschatology and 
a vague expectation of a resurrection of the dead. The 
Hellenes and Romans, under the influence of philosophy, 
acquired another conception of immortality, and their 
institutions, issuing from collectivism, broke up into indi- 
vidualism. 

In the extreme East, on the other hand, the ancient 

beliefs and institutions remained stationary, and Buddhism 

was unable materially to disturb them. It introduced its 

doctrine of Metampsichosis, its Nirvana, and its hell ; but 

^ Sepp, AUbayerischer Sagenschatz, Munich, 1876, p. 87 et seq. 

309 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

these notions did not modify, they got mixed up with the 
old conceptions in a jumble of heterogeneous and contra- 
dictory beliefs. To the present day the family remains the 
unit in the State ; it is under the patriarchal despotism of 
the head of the line, the priest of the domestic hearth, the 
proprietor for the time being of the family estate. Every 
household has its particular gods and protectors — the 
ancestors thus sublimated, and the master of the family, 
the prospective god. The condition beyond the grave in no 
way depends on conduct during life, it is determined by 
the descendants. If the defunct be honoured, enriched with 
sacrifices, he becomes a beneficent protector and is happy ; 
neglected and abandoned, he avenges his unfortunate con- 
dition on his forgetful posterity. To transmit the family 
cult and the patrimonial field to an heir is the first duty 
of man. We inherit unconsciously, not the physical char- 
acter of our ancestors only, but also their ideas and pre- 
judices. Our practices are often dictated by custom of very 
ancient date, not at all by reason or by conviction. Ex- 
pense and trouble are incurred to convey a corpse from one 
end of Europe to England, that it may repose in the 
family vault. We decorate our graves with flowers as 
though the dead appreciated them ; they are but the repre- 
sentatives of the ancient sacrifice to the dead. We drink 
to the memory of the deceased as though pouring out 
libations to them. Our tombstones are direct descendants 
of the menhir and the obelisk, our altar-tombs of the 
dolmen, our family vault of the primeval cave ossuary. 

But in one point we have diverged very far from the 
path of old beliefs. We have lost touch with the invisible 
world; we put our dead out of sight and remember them 
no more, as though no part of the community to which we 
belong, nor links in a chain of which every link is living. 

It was one of the sayings of Swedenborg, that the Aryan 
West had something to learn from the Turanian East. It 

310 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

is SO — the reverend thought of the dead as still forming a 
part of the organism of the family. With the revolt at the 
Reformation at the trade made out of the feelings of the 
bereaved, the coining of their tears into cash to line the 
pockets of the priests, came an unwarranted oblivion of the 
dead, a dissociation from them. The thought that the 
departed had still a claim on our sympathy and on our 
prayers was banished as smacking of the discarded abuse. 
Prayer for the dying was legitimate and obligatory at ten 
minutes to three, but prohibited at five minutes to three 
when the breath had passed away. We have gone too far 
in this direction. We live in an immaterial as well as in 
a material world. We are planted at the overlap of two 
spheres, that which is spiritual and that which is physical, 
and we gravitate so sensibly and so rapidly to the latter 
as to lose touch with the former, and finally to disbelieve 
in the existence of such a sphere. 

The earth can radiate its heat, and receive and be steeped 
in the falling dew only when the sky is not overcast ; but our 
heavens are so thick with clouds that our spirits can exhale 
no warmth into the Infinite, nor drink in any balm descend- 
ing from the Unseen. It is only by detachment from the 
routine of vulgar life that we can enter into any relation 
with the spiritual world. Political interests, social obli- 
gations, financial concerns, choke the spiracles of our inner 
being, and we lose all concern about what is supersensible, 
and hold no communication with it. There are stars 
and planets foverhead, Orion with his spangled belt, Cas- 
siopeia in her glittering chair, and Pleiades in their web of 
silver, but we cannot see them because of the fog that 
envelops us. 

According to an Indian legend, the first men were bred 
like maggots in the heart of the earth, but laying hold of 
some depending fibres drew themselves up into the light of 
day. We reverse the order, and from the bright spiritual 

311 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

sphere crawl underground by the thousand tendrils of daily 
life. 

The early Methodists and the Quakers broke away from 
the low material conception of life common in their day, 
and asserted the reality of the spiritual world, and the 
duty of living for it, as also the certainty of holding inter- 
communion with the spirits. The ' Other worldliness ' of 
the mediaeval monastic mysticism had produced a revolt 
against a conception of life that was false, its passive 
hostility to civilisation, the hollowness of its ideal existence, 
its exaggerated asceticism, its disparagement of the family 
life, and the result was the swing of the pendulum in the 
opposite direction. The recoil came with the Methodists. 
But we cannot live wholly in the world of spirit, any more 
than we ought to live wholly in the world of matter, for 
our nature is double, and no portion of it should be atro- 
phied. Extreme mysticism is as falsifying of our nature 
as is extreme worldliness. The stupidity and charlatanism 
of modern spiritualism is the rebellion of men and women 
against the materialism of present conception of life. 
Where natural expression of a need is checked, it breaks 
out in a disordered form, just as arrested perspiration and 
circulation of the blood produce fever. If all recog- 
nition of supersensible existence be denied, the assertion 
that it does, has its place, and makes its demands on us, 
will call forth, if not a wholesome, then a diseased ex- 
pression. 

We are intended to rise at times and breathe the atmos- 
phere above us, and then to descend again to the lower 
region. It is only the dab and the common plaice that are 
content to lie ever on the bottom, and they are but one- 
sided fish. They see with one eye only, the other has been 
absorbed and become dead. Every creature has in it a 
promise of something better than what it is. The slow- 
worm has rudimentary legs, but they are never developed ; 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

the oyster has rudimentary eyes, but they come to nothing. 
The larva has in it the promise of wings, and it grows into 
a butterfly or dies a grub. The soul of man has its wings 
so battered by its cage and is so enamoured of its groundsel 
and bit of sugar, that even if the door be left open it will 
not look forth, certainly not break away. Yet there is a 
world beyond the bars, and a world peopled by happy 
spirits, and if it cannot at once join them, it can call to 
them and unite with them in rapturous song. The old 
turnspit was bred in the kitchen, and its daily task was to 
run in the revolving drum that helped to roast the meat. 
Its legs became deformed like those of the dachshund. It 
cared not to romp in the green meadows, to run with the 
hounds, it waddled about the kitchen floor looking out 
for the bones and scraps of fat cast to it, as payment for 
its toil. And that is what we are becoming through un- 
remitting neglect of our spiritual avocation. 

More than fifty years ago I was walking at night through 
lanes near Dartmoor, and caught up a trudging postman 
who daily, nightly, measured long distances. I soon found 
that he was a man who had his spiritual eye open. 

" Do you not feel lonely in these long walks in the dark ? " 
I inquired. 

" I am never alone," he replied, " the spirits are always 
with me." 

" Your thoughts," I suggested. 

" My thoughts are indeed within me, humming in my head. 
I must go forth to meet the spirits. Look here," he went 
on, "the soul of man is like a fly in a cobweb. It can't 
spread its wings till it breaks loose, and then it very often 
carries away some of the threads with it.'' 

Mr. Jacks gives us, in his " Human Studies," one of a 
shepherd on the Wolds, the counterpart of my postman. 
There be more of these men than is generally supposed. 
But he who would deal with this subject would be con- 

513 



ROCK SEPULCHRES 

strained to say with the knight in the " Canterbury 
Pilgrims"— 

'^ I have, God wot, a large field to ere 
And wayke ben the oxen in the plough/' 

I have broken away from my caves, and have rambled — I 
know not whither. 

Vive, vale : si quid novisti rectius istis, 
Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum. 

— Horace, Epist. i. 6. 



314 



APPENDIX 

Owing to the great kindness of Mr. Wm. Stevenson, author 
of '^ Bygone Nottinghamshire/' I am able to give some additional 
matter that must be of interest, with which he has supplied me. 

(p. 32.) "Your account reminds me of a rock excavation of 
great extent with turns and windings on the old time ' Way to 
the Gallows,' in Nottingham, where a number of cave-dwellings 
existed down to a century ago. The last tenant was a sand- 
man who stabled his ass in the cave behind. He passed the 
greater part of his life in selling sand about the town, carrying 
it in a sack across the back of his ass. Time wore him out, 
and he had to enter the workhouse. His cave yvas then ex- 
plored, and it was found of enormous extent, in two storeys. 
It is supposed to have been mainly wrought day after day 
and year after year by this sandman. It is still to be seen, 
but dangerous to explore. One party of investigators a few 
years ago carried a string with them as a clue by means of 
which to find their way out again. There is a story of it 
becoming a lurking place of robbers after the sandman's day. 
A number of the excavations under the town are held to have 
been made or extended by the tenants above, obtaining their 
supply of sand from below. Formerly floors were sanded." 

(p. 35.) PuTicoLi. Slave pits have been found in South 
Africa. "When the old town hall and town prison at 
Nottingham was demolished a few years ago, and the site was 
excavated for the advance of the Great Central Railway, seven 
or more pits were found, one with a rusty chain in it. They 
were about four feet in diameter at the top, and seven feet at 
the bottom, with dished floors. They varied from about twelve 
to eighteen feet in depth. We had no knowledge of anything 
of the kind in local history. Two others were found a distance 
away that could have had no connection with the prison site." 

315 



APPENDIX 

Formerly at Monte Carlo the bodies of suicides were thrust 
into the holes that riddle the limestone rock and gave it the 
name of Les Spelunges. But the conditions became insanitary, 
and Italian workmen were employed to get them out, and 
carry them away to sea and there sink them. 

(p. 50.) '^ Formerly it was the way in which wells were 
ascended and descended in Nottingham, by means of notches 
cut in the side for the insertion of toes and fingers. I have 
had to do with the exploration of the base of Edward IV/s 
Tower at Nottingham Castle, destroyed with gunpowder during 
the Civil War. In one corner of the basement we found a well 
filled with rubbish. This the workmen cleared out for over 
fifty feet, and all the way down were notches in the wall, and 
the men went up and down like monkeys, using no other 
means for ascending and descending." 

(p. 83.) Ventholes for smoke were common in Nottingham, 
Sneinton, and Mansfield. 

(p. 82.) SouTERRAiNs. Mr. Stevenson writes relative to the 
pits before the entrance doors of refuges : '' Some years ago 
I had a part in exploring the Norman Keep of Scarborough 
Castle, erected early in the reign of Henry II.; we worked 
under the entrance staircase, and found a pit arched over at a 
later period and covered with a stone landing, but originally it 
must have been a pit or well in front of the only entrance 
door. It was partly cleared out of fallen masonry and rubbish, 
but not properly explored. Overhead was a shoot for stones 
or molten lead. It would appear that the pit system was 
abandoned about the close of the Middle Ages." 

(p. 98.) "It is fairly well determined in the 'History of 
Nottingham' that the Roman Catholics in Elizabeth's and 
James I.'s reign met secretly in the caves in the rock of 
the town. They were also refuges of the Dissenters in the 
days of Charles II." 

(p. 153.) Nottingham. '' There have been several falls of the 
rock, both at Nottingham itself and at Sneinton. Mortimer's 
Hole, under the Castle, is only one of four that are known to 
exist, three of which can be traversed, one wholly and two in 
part; one of these latter is by many regarded as the true 

316 



APPENDIX 

historical passage. It started at the meadow level, and was 
partially closed by a wall ; the rock wasted with time, and the 
thin wall gave way, bringing down a vast amount of rock above, 
and leaving the cavern in this part an open alley. The cave 
was then converted into malt offices, which yet remain in the 
higher and perfect part. The rock-caverns in the park, the 
old cell of S. Mary-le-rocke, formed possibly the parent of 
Lenton priory, just as those at Liguge were the parent of the 
abbey on the further side of the river. The rock monastery, 
the ' Papists* Holes,' has long ago lost most of its front by 
falls of rock and the destruction wrought by the Roundheads. 
A huge artificial pillar has of recent years been erected to 
prevent further falls. A fall in 1829 brought down from 1000 
to 1400 tons, a mass some seven or eight feet thick. On 10th 
May in the same year, evidently due to an earth tremor, a like 
great fall occurred at the rock habitations at Sneinton. The 
inhabitants escaped as by a miracle. A dog barked furiously 
in the night, and the inhabitants of the cave dwellings rushed 
forth, fancying that robbers were at work there. In 1830 a 
portion of the town cliff fell, as did also some of that in the 
park. 

" The county or sheriff prison for Notts and Derby was, as far 
as can be traced back by records, half-way up the over ninety 
feet cliff of the town of Nottingham, and was entered from the 
King's hall at the top. Light holes were made in the face of 
the rock to the south. In these vaults, now closed, men and 
women were confined like wild beasts, on straw. The prior 
and monks were enclosed here in the time of Henry VIII., and 
were marched thence to the gallows. The inhabitants of the 
lower part of the town under the prison complained of the 
ordure exuding from the prison and trickling down the rock. 
There are records of marvellous escapes of prisoners, both male 
and female, down the face of the rock, till comparatively 
recently. As may well be supposed, gaol-fever raged in these 
horrible dens. One vault is still shown under the castle. 
Leland and Camden both speak of an underground dungeon in 
which tradition (this time falsely) says that King David of 
Scotland was confined, and on the walls of which with a nail he 

317 



APPENDIX 

carved a crucifix. These travellers do not say that they actually 
saw it; but Thomas Bailey, in publishing his 'Annals of 
Notts/ employed a local artist to depict the scene. After the 
erection in the seventeenth century of the Italian castle, the 
vault was converted into a wine-cellar. Leland says that there 
had been three chapels in the castle, but he does not say where, 

" In the town of Nottingham are two rock-hewn stairs. The 
most important is called the ' Long Stairs,' they begin, cut out 
of the perpendicular face of the rock, at its highest point, 
landing opposite the old mother church. The steps are now 
faced with harder material than the local sandstone. On the 
side there are houses, and indeed houses on the tops of houses, 
a tenant at a lower level, another at a higher, each obtaining 
entry from the stairs. The ' Short Stairs ' are not wrought 
in the face of the cliff, and have houses on both sides. These 
are clearly in a prehistoric quarter of the town, where was once 
a hill-fort." 

(p. 159.) Ford Castles. The ancient ford at Retford, Notts, 
was more north than the present, and beside it is a red cliff 
largely cut into with joist-holes, &c., for floors and roofs, and 
give indications of former habitations. 

Radford, a name borrowed by the priory, alias Worksop, is a 
hill of red sandstone that dominated the ford. On the hill is an 
entrenchment. 

(p. 160.) Mr. Stevenson remarks on the holes in the floor at 
Rochebrune ; " This is what I should expect to find in a maltery, 
which must be of two floors, the lower one for steeping and 
sprouting the corn, and holding the fire-crates, the higher one 
for drying and storing the malt. The higher floors are now 
made of perforated tiles, the holes too small for the grains to 
pass through, but in old times I think the malt was dried in 
braziers something like large frying-pans. Drying rooms for 
wheat were attached to corn-mills to dry the corn before 
grinding. In some seasons corn is difficult to dry ; perhaps in 
France they did not make malt, but they may have dried 
grapes." Malt was not made in Perigord, I believe ; and the 
indications at Rochebrune are strongly those of defence against 
assailants. Grapes would hardly be dried in a cavern, but in 
the sun, and there is plenty of sun in the South of France. 

318 



INDEX 



Abbadie, 238 
Acharaca, 250 
Adersbach, 70-71, 291 
AduUam, 277-278 
Afghanistan, 6 
Agapse, 201 
Agel, Mont, 171 
Aigner, Lazarus, 259-261 
Alban, 78 

Albigenses, 77, 113, 124 
Albret, the Bastard of, 127, 129, 134, 
136 

„ Jeanne d', 162, 187 
Algeria, 102 
Altamira, 25 
Altars of wood, 176 
Amadou, cave of S., 214-215 
Amator, S., 188 
Anaplous, 266 
Ancestor worship, 175, 309 
Anchor Church, 223 
Anchorites, 204-205. See also Hermits 
Anglais, Chateau des, 136-137, 141 
Angouleme, 65, 206 
Antinoe, 193 

Antoine de Bourbon, 162, 187 
Antony the Great, 228 

„ of Padua, 212-213 
Apollonios of Tyana, 250 
Aquitania, 75-76, 95, 106, 119, 159 
Arabia Petraea, 21 
Aram, Eugene, 221 
Arc, Jeanne d', 128 
Archerfield, 98 
Arian persecution, 229, See also 

Visigoths 
Armenia, 6 
Arsinoe, 229 
Arthur, King, 259 
Asmund and Asvid, 305-306 
Athanasius, S., 203, 231 
Auberge du Paradis, 23, 132 
Aubeterre, 78, 184-187 
Austell, S., 307 



Austin's Eock, Holy, 59 
Auvergne, 112, 129, 143-146 

Babinsky, 292-293 

Balmes du Montbrun, 51 

Bamian, caves of, 6 

Baptistery, 234, 235-236 

Baradatus, 204 

Basilican churches, 173-174, 176- 

177 
Basket makers, 47 
Bauer, the German, 20 
Beatus, S., 206 
Beaumont-la-Eonce, 40 
Benedict, S. ,. 218 
Beraea, 204 
Besangon, 171 
Besserat, Bertrand de, 136 
Bethhoron, 72 
Bethlehem, 193-194 
Beune Kiver, 47 
Bigaroque, 133 

Bishops, Gallo-Koman, 205, 233 
Blancs, les, 45-46 
Blandas, grotto, 28 
Boissiere, 51 

Bonnaventure, Chateau, 162 
Borne Kiver, 52-53, 152 
Bottor rocks, 116 
Boundoulaou cave, 109 
Bourg-sur-Garonne, 78 
Bourr^, 46 

Boydan, Chateau, 36 
Brantome, 48-49, 167, 195, 238-239 
Brengues, clifE castles, 110, 135-136 
Bretigny, Treaty of, 77, 119 
Brice, S., 236-237 
Brittany, 88-89, 189-192 
Brive, 111, 212-213 
Buckland, Dr., 21 

Buddhism,^196-198, 199, 201-204, 309 
Burgstein, 153-154 
Buxton cave, 114 
Byzantium, 266 



319 



INDEX 



Cabeebets, 134, 136 
Cadoc, S., 307 
Caerleon, 267 
Caer Penselcoit, 20 
Cahors, 183, 135-137 
Cajarc, 133-134 
Calvin, 164-165 
Calvinism, see Huguenots 
Cann, John, 116 
Canope, 2G5 
Capdenac, 133 
Carlux, 129 
Carmel, Mount, 195 
Catacombs, 173-174, 296-299 
„ Jewish, 296 

of Paris, 299-300 
Catacumbal churches, 173, 176 
Caudon, 129, 189 

Causse de Quercy, 128-131, 134, 281 
Cazelles 104 

Cel^ River, 28, 48, 110, 133, 135-137 
Ceyssac, 53 
Chalk, 17-20, 23, 26, 97, 146, 162-163, 

167, 302 
Champagne, 26 
Charente River, 163 
Charonion, 247, 268 
Chateau des Anglais, 136-137, 141 

du Diable, 134, 136-137, 
141 

de FayroUe, 83-84 

Robin, 78-82 
Chauvigny, 160 
Cheney, Sir Robert, 125 
Chinamen, 277 
Chislehurst caves, 95-97 
Christchurch, Incubation at, 267 
Chysoyster, 20 
Citheron, 257 
Civilis, 72-73 
Cluseau, 56 
Commarques, 55 

Companies, Free, 55, 106, 123, 125- 
128, 129, 131, 133. See also Rentiers 
Conduche, 28, 133, 137 
Confolens, Dolmen at, 192 
Conrad, Friar, 249 
Conscription, 89-90 
Conteaux, 52 
Contigne, 87 
Corbulo, 72 
Corcodemus, 307 
Cordova, 218 
Corent, 112 
Corn, 133-135 



Cornwall, 60-61, 67, 98, 221-222 

Correze, 54-56 

Cosmas and Damian, SS., 266 

Courtineau, 47 

Covolo, 155 

Crassus, 72 

Crete, 101-102, 192-193, 246-248 

Crimea, 50-51, 245 

Crouzate, la, cave, 280-281 

Crusaders, 195 

Crypts, 174, 184, 189, 195 

Cuzorn, 48 

Cybard, S., 206 



Dale abbey, 60 

Darenth wood, 95 

Dartmoor, 253, 313 

David, 277 

Death, goddess of, 302 

Defile des Anglais, 48, 137 

Delos, 277 

Delphi, 247 

" De Miraculis Mortuorum," 307 

Dene holes, 95-97 

Derbyshire, 59-60, 114-115 

Der-el-Adra, 249 

Devil's Dyke, 66 

Devonshire, 66 

Dolmen chapels, 189-192 

Dordogne River, 7, 104, 129, 149, 151, 

181 
Dover, 172, 226 
Drakelow, 59 
Dronne River, 167, 184 
Duclair, 43 
Dunterton, 284 



ECOECHBUES, 44 

Edmund, S., of Canterbury, 205 

Edrei, 30 

Egg, Isle of, 99-100 

Egypt, 51, 193, 199, 229, 244, 295 

Egyptian sepulchres, 295 

Ehrenbreitstein, 171 

Emilion, S., 181-184 

Essenes, 199 

Esterelle, 240 

Eyzies, les, 22-23, 24, 118 

Ezy, 40-43 



Fadaeelles, Grottoes de, 110-111 
Faron, 171 



320 



INDEX 



Fauroux, 84-85 
Fayrolle, Chateau de, 83 
Ferrage, Jules, 281-282 
Feruiden, 280 
Fetzer, 207-208 

Feudal barbarity, 87, 93-95, 119, 125, 
143-144, 146 
„ duties, 86, 117 
Figeac, 133 
Findchua, S., 204-205 
Fogous, 98 
Francis, S., 218-219 
Frederick Barbarossa, 259 
Freiburg, 211 
Froissart, 93, 125, 126-127, 170 



Gapennes, 90-91 

Gargas, cave of, 281-282 

Gatianus, S., 234-235 

Gauderic, S., 84 

Gest, 203-204 

Gethsemane, 193-194 

Gibraltar, 171 

Glass windows, 180 

Gluges, 181 

Gorlitz, 195 

Gortina, 101 

Grammat, 131, 152 

Grands Jours, les, 144-145 

Greenhithe, 226 

Grettir, 283-284, 303 

Grioteaux, 47 

Grotte de Jioux, 161 
,, Jouclas, 189 
„ des Fees, 189 
„ „ Vierges, 37 

Grottoes de Boissiere, 31 
„ „ Jonas, 52 

Gubbins, the, 66 

Gue du Loir, 162-163 

Gunnar, 305 

Gurat, 189 



Habichstein, 152-153 

Hallbjorn, 252-253 

Ham, 63 

Han, 28-29 

Hasting, 76 

Hauran, 30 

Hautefaye, 49 

Hawk wood, 125 

Helfenstein, 209 

Helgi Hundingsbane, 305 



Hermits in Bohemia, 154 

„ „ Egypt, 198-199, 228-229, 

231 
„ „ England, 220-221, 225- 

227 
„ „ France, 205-206, 214-215 
„ ,, Germany, 207-208 
„ „ Italy, 218-219 
„ „ Languedoc, 206-207 
„ „ Switzerland, 206, 208-211 
,, „ Syria, 198-199, 228-229 
„ „ Tibet, 196-198 
„ „ Turkey, 243 

Herodotus, 30 

Hervor, 302-303 

Holy Austin's Eock, 59 

Holy Land, grottoes in, 193-195 

Honoratus, S., 240 

Horseflesh, 27 

Huguenots, 112-113, 135, 139, 148, 
150-151, 166-167, 189, 233, 234 

Hundred Years' War, 77, 105, 123, 
150, 184 



Iceland, 95, 252-253, 282-284 
Immortality, instinct of, 301-304 
Incubation, 240, 264-267 
Indulgences, 217, 257 
Ingrandes, 78 
Inkermann, 51, 245 
Ispica, Val d', 49-51 
Italy, disorders in, 120 
,, hermitages in, 218 



Jioux, Grotte de, 161 
John and Paul, SS., 175 
Jonas, Grottoes de, 52 
Jordas cave, 116 
Jouclas, Grotte de, 189 
Julius Sabinus, 73-74 
Jura limestone, 18, 149, 154 



KiNVBE, 59 

Knaresborough, 220-221 

KnoUys, Sir Robert, 125 

Konigstein, 172 

Kronmetz, 155 

Kynaston, Humphrey, 269-276 



Lalandb, 151 
Lamorci^re, General, 102 



321 



INDEX 



Lamouroux, Grottoes de, 56 

Landon, Mr., 196-197 

Lanmeur, 189 

Lartet and Christy, 22, 28 

Larzac, Causse de, 109 

Laugerie Basse, 27 

Lavardin, 37, 80 

La Vendue, 88-89 

Lavergue, 131 

Lazarus Aigner, 259-261 

Leichtweiss, 289-291 

Leitomischl, 294 

Leobard, S., 237 

Les Eyzies, 22-24 

Les Koches, 35-36 

Lhern, 131 

Ligug^, 233-234 

Lirac, 188 

Lisle, 39 

Loir Kiver, 32, 35, 162, 214 

Loire Eiver, 32, 43, 76, 234 

Lombrive, cave of, 77, 114, 279 

Lot Eiver, 7, 75, 129, 133 

Loudun, 40 

Lough Derg, 254-259 

Lourdes, 267-268 

Lyall, Sir Charles, 21-22 

Lydford, 66 

Lyons, 201 



Macaiee, Saint, 78 
Maoarius, S., 202 
Macdonalds, massacre of, 99 
Mad shepherds, 68-69, 313 
Makkedah, 72, 278 
Mansfield, 58 
Manteion, 247-248 
Marmoutier, 234-237 
Martin, S., 231-237 
Mary Magdalen, 213-214 

„ of Egypt, 228 
Masch, Karl F., 285-289 
Maskers, 235 
Maximus, S., 239-240 
Mas d'Azil, 26 
Mees, Les, 110 
Melidoni, 101 
Mellebaudes, 178-180 
Melor, S., 189-190 
Mercader, 33 

Meschers, Grottoes de, 112 
Meteora, 242-243 
Meullac, 89 
Middle Castle, 270-271 



Milan, 109 
Mimet, 188 
Misdon, 88 
Montserrat, 215-217 
Mont Agel, 171 
Montoire, 31, 35, 37 
Montvalon, 86-87 
Mortimer, 157-159 
Moustier-Ste-Marie, 240 
Murat, 87 
Murcens, 107 



Nahb Kiver, 211 
Naours, 91 
Naples, 298 
Napoleon, 89 
Navacelles, 28 
Ness Cliflf, 271-272, 276 
Northmen, 92, 147, 234, 302 
Nottingham, 76, 157-159, 227-233, 
234, 241-242, 315-318 



Obbestein, 211-212 
Olmie, 86 
Oracles, 246-252 
Orvar Odd, 76, 95 



Paintings, prehistoric, 24-26, 295 
Palestine, 6, 71-72, 193-195, 277-279, 

295-296 
Palevez, 133 
Pappewick, 222-223 
Passing under the earth, 308 
Paulin, 87 
Pausanius, 248-250 
Petit Morin, 302 
Peuch S. Sour, 105-106 
Peyre, 188 
Peyrousse, 137-139 
Philo Judseus, 199-201 • 
Picardy, 90-93 
Pit dwellings, 20 
Plouaret, 190-192 ' 
Plutarch, 250 
Poitiers, 144, 178-190, 232 
Polignac, 246 
Popish Holes, 241-242, 317 
Porphyry, 246 
Potters, 240 
Pueblos, 5-6 
Puit qui parle, le, 35 
Purgatory of S. Patrick, 254-257 



S22 



INDEX 



Puticoli, 35, 298, 315 
Puy Labrousse, 111 
Puxerloch, 155-157 



QUERCY, 75-76, 85-86, 129, 130-131, 
151, 188 



Radford, 318 

Rathlin Island, 100-101 

Reign of Terror, 114 

Relics, 176-177 

Reneval, 92 

Repton, 223 

Retford, 318 

Revolution, the French, 212, 233, 

234, 236, 238, 300-301 
Ribauds, 125, 126, 132, 148, see also 

Rentiers 
Riou Ferrand, 109 
Robber knights in Germany, 120 
Robert, S., of Knaresborough, 220-221 
Robin Hood's Cave, 222 
Rocamadour, 188-189 
Roc d'Aucor, 106-108 
„ de Cuze, 157 
„ de Tayac, 24, 132-133, 148 
Rochambeau, 37-38 
Roche, 221-222 
Roche Beaucourt, 49 
Rochebrune, 167-170, 318 
Roche Corail, 163-167 

„ de Corbon, 39 

„ Gageac, 149-151 

„ Lambert, 152 

„ Saint Christophe, 133, 146-148 

,, Sanadoire, 140-141 
Roches, les, 35-36 
Roderic, King, 261-262 
Roquefort, 135 
Roqueville, 152 
Routiers, 108, 113, 119, 121, 123-124, 

129, 137, 140-141, 142-143, see also 

Ribauds and Companies, Free 
Royston cave, 224-227 



Sabinus, Julius, 72-74 

Sainte Beaume, la, 213-214 

Salles-la-Source, 87 

Sanadoire, 140 

Sandstone, 54-56, 70-71, 84, 142-143, 

183, 212-213, 271 
Santerre, 91 



Saracens, 74-75, 85-86, 114, 180, 233, 

243 
Sarlat, 129, 149-150 
Saul, King, 252, 253 
Sauliac, 48 
Saumur, 43-45 
Scoop V5rells, 53 
Scotland, 61-64, 98, 280-281 
Sens, 68 
Serapion, 229 
Seven Sleepers, 190, 236 
Severus, B. of Ravenna, 306 
Shepston, 110 
Sibyls, 251-252 
Sicarius, S., 195, 239 
Sicily, 45-50, 298-299 
Siourat grottoes, 56 
Sneynton, 59, 316 
Sortes Sacrse, 233, 262-264 
Souillac, 189 

Soulier-de-Chasteaux, 111-112 
Sour, S., 105 

Spain, hermitages in, 208-211 
Springs in crypts, 195 
Staffordshire, 59 
Subiaco, 218 
Sulpice, S., 87 
Surtshellir, 279-280 
Swedenborg, 310 
Swiss hermitages, 208-211 
Syracuse, 298-299 



Tabenna, 229 

Tannhauser, 259 

Tarde, Jean, 149-151 

Tarn, gorges of, 41 

Tayac, Roc de, 132-133, 178 

Temniac, 129, 133 

Terni, 253 

Therapeutse, 199-200, 252 

Theresa, S., 198 

Thomas k Becket, 205 

Thor's Cave, 115 

Tibet, 106-108 

Tilbury Dene Holes, 97 

Toledo, 261 

Tombs for altars, 175-176 

Tours, 233-237 

Treves 231 

Triumph of death, 238 

Troo, 32-35, 214 

Trophonios, cave of, 248-250 

Trosky, 139-140 

Tursac, 133 



323 



m. 



INDEX 



UEDOS, 171 

Utraquists, 140 



Val d'Ispica, 49 

Var, 213 

Vendome, 37, 86, 162, 214 

„ Frangois de, 38-39 
Verena, S., 210 
Vernia, La, 218 
Vers Eiver, 106, 109 
Vdz^re River, 22, 27, 47, 105, 111, 

146 
Victor Hugo, 88-89 
Vienne, dep., 88 
Villaines, 47 



Villiers, 7, 214 

Visigoths, 114, 159-160, 180 

Voulon, 114, 161 



Warkworth, 219, 220 
Welsh marriages, 273 
Wick, Bay of, 61-64 
Wickelsdorf, 70-71, 291 
Wiesbaden, 289-291 
Wild Kirchlein, 208-209 
Wulfric, S., 205 
Wiirzburg, 195 



Zaccheus, 188 



THE END 



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